Boxed (Bagged) Wine

[cooper]

Hey coops, these guys need an edumacation on NZ and OZ wines. The best whites come from NZ and the best Reds come from Oz IMO.

Hey wheels I ll drink to that ....

Actually its getting very very very good!

And another wiv you mark

(Banrock Station for example) are actually quaffable.

ans jest anover little drik, drinky wif yyyyyyyyu weyalan...

[Steve Kidson]

We are lucky here in the land down under that our wines are both good quality and well priced, meaning value for money, even the cask wine.

We started our association with cask wine when we used to go camping. The bladder is removed from the box, and is much more space efficient in the Esky - thats an ice box for those not fluent in Oz speak.

Another point of trivia, the wine cask is actually an Australian invention.

Malborough Sound and Oyster Bay (NZ, our 7th state) does produce the best Sav Blanc I have tasted.

Fair winds

Steve

[Alan Wheeler]

A wine that is very hard to get in our own country, "CloudyBay". A darn fine drop if I may say so. All of it goes to export, unless you know the odd person that can get you a bottle or two every now and then :-)

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

in our own country, "CloudyBay".

Yes, there wouldn't be too many of those in NZ.


LOL

Heheehehehehe LOL! I'm so funny!!!!!!!!!

[cooper]

STERN VOICE "MARK...DID YOU FINISHED THE CASK ?" ......

We have our own cloudy bay to be, Its called Port Phillip Bay..see "dreging of port phillip bay Melbourne." Very controversial.

Wheels , do you want me to send a few bottles back ; )

[Alan Wheeler]

Wheels , do you want me to send a few bottles back ; )

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were cheaper, you sending them back, than me buying them here.
Marlborough (that's were I live) is easily the largest wine producer in NZ. There is now 22500 hectares of land in vinyard and a further 10,000 hectares being planted this year. I suppose all that is small on some country standards, but it is stagering figures here in NZ. Marlborough is one out of four major wine producing area's in NZ now, with many more smaller ones scattered around the country.
I was talking to a guy that has a post driving business and he is booked solid for the next 1.5 yrs with 400,000 posts to drive in. He is just one of 5 contractors doing that.
The down side to all that is, we have land prices that have gone through the sky, let alone roof. NZ$3mill was paid for a hectare of land last year. Housing has become simply unaffordable. We are up there with Auckland now and NZ is now considered the most expensive place to buy a house in the world, so the news announced two days ago. We have huge amounts of water being sucked out of that ground for irrigation. On average, 9ltrs of water per vine/day and there are 2500 vines per hectare. The biggest issue of all is spraying what ever it is that is sprayed onto the vines over their growing period. We all wonder just how much of that we end up breathing and just what it is that we are breathing. Just a couple years back, somebody came up with a question, if the land is full of these treated posts, how much Arsenic and other dangerouse stuff is leaching from the posts into the ground. Good question and I don't think anyone wanted to answer that question. Although some vinyards have "supposedly" tested their wines and said no chemicals were found it it. Does make you think though.

[markpj23]

Originally Posted by Pblais

I try to avoid them if possible. I can tolerate no cork but the wine is intolerable....

I used to feel the same way - born from my Franzia experience in the mid-80s. However things are much different today. Try the Black Box Chardonnay - it was a pleasant surprise to me anyway.

[GordMay]

[quote Wheels]
The down side to all that is, we have land prices that have gone through the sky, let alone roof. NZ$3mill was paid for a hectare of land last year. Housing has become simply unaffordable. We are up there with Auckland now and NZ is now considered the most expensive place to buy a house in the world, so the news announced two days ago.[/quote]

According to the New York Times, Auckland didn’teven make the top 50 most expensive cities, in which to live. Of course, real estate would only be one of the factors considered.

Sydney, Au, was listed 19TH most expensive this year, up from #21

Moscow, London, Seoul, Tokyo, & Hong Kong.

The five most expensive cities in the world ... and the five cheapest
by Jonathan Morrison
The five most expensive cities in the world... - Times Online

"It's official: Moscow is the world's most expensive city - a full 34 per cent more costly than New York. London comes second out of 143 cities worldwide in the annual cost of living survey from Mercer, the consultancy..."

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

a post driving business and he is booked solid for the next 1.5 yrs

He'll be unemployed after that. We have the same thing here where every city dweller who doesn't sail wants to retire to a hectare of vinyard in the Hunter and sit on the balcony sippin his own red while he watches next years batch growing into a million dollars. Only thing its thats twaddle of the bull variety as the big bottlers want to buy grapes from quality controlled larger holdings as its better and cheaper. so a lot of the small ones are just rotting.

Originally Posted by GordMay

Sydney, Au, was listed 19TH most expensive this year, up from #21

Yeah, Gord, I know. I just bought a house 1.5kms (1 mile?) from the centre of the Sydney CBD. I don't know if I should cry because of the price I paiid, or be happy because at least I have one!


Mark