Cham-pahn-ya In A Box

February 20, 2008 8:01 PM

Can I get champagne in a box? If yes, where? If not, why not?
posted by sparkletone to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

I'm pretty sure the required pressurization of champagne (or any sparkling wine, for that matter [Cava, Prosecco &c.]) would be highly incompatible with any box wine's box design, which usually have things like vents to allow the liquid to flow.

Closest thing I could find was this sparkling white in a can. The reviewer is not impressed.
posted by Xoder at 8:09 PM on February 20, 2008

Champagne is pressurized to about 90 psi, which is over twice that of a car tire. Your typical mass-market packaging can't withstand this kind of pressure. Someone could probably manufacture such a thing but it would be quite an innovative design.
posted by crapmatic at 8:22 PM on February 20, 2008

The flexible bag inside a box isn't going to withstand that much pressure without being manufactured out of something much stronger, which increases cost, weight, etc. Also, the pressurization would wreak havoc with any sort of dispenser. Part of the attraction of a box is dispensing a glass at a time, if you try that with champers, you'd get foamy glasses of bubbles sprayed out.
posted by pupdog at 8:32 PM on February 20, 2008

I guess you can put a bottle of champaign into a box.

I suppose it'd be possible to rig a pressure-resistant tap to a magnum of champaign, then hide that all inside of a box.
posted by porpoise at 8:35 PM on February 20, 2008

I've had the sparkling white in a can Xoder mentions. While it was bad, it was better than we thought it would be. We got it for camping, which is really the very best excuse to drink things out of a can or box that shouldn't be in a can or box.
posted by crinklebat at 8:37 PM on February 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

crinklebat, I suspect war is probably a better excuse for tins. As far as champagne in a box goes, it appears you're out of luck, sparkletone, or, perhaps, in luck. The pressure answers above all look correct to me (not that I'm any kind of expert; I'm just a Google-user who was interested in the question).
posted by cgc373 at 8:54 PM on February 20, 2008

Furthermore, carbonating the wine via the méthode Champenoise would never work in a box (scroll down and read about "riddling" and "disgorging").
posted by rkent at 9:35 PM on February 20, 2008

I didn't really consider the pressure when were talking about this earlier, but 90 psi is a lot.

To wit: A few years back I came in with my road bike and leaned it against the wall in my bedroom. That night I was awoken by a loud bang. We're talking gun shot loud, ears ringing, wtf was that?!? type sound. For whatever reason the 100psi front tire on my bike had blown about four feet from my head. Scared the hell out of me. Nowadays when I'm screwing around with bike tires I'm always careful with seating the tubes and tires properly... I really don't want to have my hand near one when it blows like that.

Further, I've popped my share of champagne bottles in my day without incident, but recently a bottle Chimay nearly took my buddy's head off when the cork blew off after I undid the wire cage. Shit. Scared. Out. Of.

So yeah, any box or bag would have to be incredibly over engineered to hold up to that type of pressure.
posted by wfrgms at 11:35 PM on February 20, 2008

I bet you could put Champagne in a keg
posted by Bonzai at 12:00 AM on February 21, 2008