To Glass or not to glass?

Willy’s place outside Girona is a shrine to one thing and one thing only: Bordeaux stored in glass. Thick bottles, deep punts, proper corks—stuff that feels like it should come with a Latin mass and a choir. Willy pours, he drinks, he smiles. Ask for tasting notes and he waves you off like you just suggested adding ice cubes. “It’s good. Next question.” End of seminar. You like that attitude, don’t you?

Step outside Casa Willy and real life smacks you—mortgage/rent, traffic, and supermarket end-caps stacked with wine dressed up as juice boxes. Yes, apparently we now drink from cardboard bladders and aluminum soda cans. Because nothing screams haute viticulture like ripping a foil pouch and squeezing out three liters of mystery red next to the dishwasher.

The evangelists have their talking points: cheaper, lighter, greener! Great—so is tap water. Bag-in-box “keeps fresh for a month,” they say. Translation: the wine was so forgettable you needed 30 days to finish it. Cans are “perfect for the beach.” True—because when the tide rolls in, nobody can taste that your rosé came pre-carbonated with a hint of aluminum rim.

Look, I’m not blind. Ninety-something percent of wine is guzzled within the week. Most of it never needed ageing, never deserved glass, and probably tastes the same pouring from a Lands End rain boot. But a bottle still does two magical things the box brigade can’t touch: it lets a wine grow up and it tells you the maker cared enough to dress the liquid properly. A cork is a promise; a pull-tab is a shrug.

And spare me the sustainability sermon. You want to save the planet? Skip a flight to Ibiza, plant a tree, ride a bike. Don’t ask me to celebrate Nebbiolo in a Capri-Sun pouch as ecological heroism. See what you did Tom?

So here’s the math:

• Collectible, age-worthy wine: needs glass, period.
• Everyday plonk: sure, shove it in a milk carton if you must. Just don’t pretend it’s a revolution.
• Box and can drinkers: congratulations—you’ve traded ritual for convenience. Enjoy your adult juice box; I’ll keep my corkscrew and my leather bottle bitch bag.

Willy will keep swirling his Chateau Margaux, Chateau Haut- Brion, and Chateau Lafleur, secure in his slightly dusty temple of glass. I’ll stand beside him, sarcasm ready, watching the cardboard crusade march past like a discount parade. When the cork pops, we’ll toast to real bottles—and raise a gracious second toast to everyone else, sipping their Pinot from metal tubes, convinced they’ve hacked wine.

Because in the end wine is supposed to taste good. A bottle guarantees at least the possibility of greatness. A box guarantees…a handle. Choose wisely.

Thanks Tom and Tripp.