Wine connoisseurs have long looked down their noses at folks who drink boxed wine. But, if an OP-ED piece appearing in the New York Times is any indication, drinking ‘out of the box’ may soon become the cool thing to do.

Why? Those heavy green bottles aren’t so Green. Trucking wine in bottles from the West Coast, where the vast majority of American wine is produced, to the East Coast, where the majority of it is consumed, leaves a massive carbon footprint. Tyler Coleman, in his NY Times opinion piece, writes, ‘It is estimated that switching to lighter boxed wine for the 97% of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce greenhouse gases by roughly 2 million tons or the equivalent of 400,000 cars.’

They’re starting to go Green with wine in Europe. Italy’s Agriculture Ministry recently announced that some wines that receive the government’s quality assurance label may now be sold in boxes.

Wine in boxes has practical advantages, too. Once opened, a box preserves a wine for about four weeks, vs. only a couple of days for a bottle.

It may be time to think outside the box and start drinking wine out of the box.

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