Boxing News

There is a lot of bad news in the wine world of late but box wine sales offer a bright spot

There is seemingly no end to bad wine-world news: sales are down, drinkers are abstaining, the key demographic is aging and vineyards are being pulled out or even burned to the ground. I’m happy to report I’ve found a bright spot: people are drinking more box wine- and in North Dakota they’re drinking it a lot.

According to a Wine Analytics report by NIQ Data in Wine Business News this past June, wine in glass bottles declined nearly 5% while sales of box wines priced over $4 were up 3% and total box wine sales were up 1%. And while these sales weren’t broken down by state North Dakota may be at the top of the list; I’ve seen the photographs.

The photographs (see below) were taken at Happy Harry’s Bottle Shops - Fargo and Grand Forks - where there are multiple long aisles of box wines. I was so impressed by the magnitude of the selection I called Happy Harry’s President and CEO Dustin Mitzel to chat.

Box wines have been big at Happy Harry’s for some time said Mr. Mitzel but they took a big upward tick in the post-pandemic years. While Black Box leads the category at his stores, he also does a brisk business with Franzia and Bota Box and recently received a request for Gratsi, a pricey box wine that costs $39 but it isn’t distributed in North Dakota – at least not yet.

Coincidentally, I received samples of three Gratsi wines in red, white and rosé in the past month - some of the first samples I’ve tasted in my post-Wall Street Journal life. I was impressed first and foremost with Gratsi’s packaging – the color and shape of the boxes - all pastel shades and snazzy typeface. The wines inside were pretty good - a zingy white that tasted like Sauvignon Blanc and a light-bodied red that was soft like Merlot, but the pink was my favorite - a bright, lively light-bodied thoroughly drinkable wine.

Unlike many box wines, the Gratsi boxes do not sport the name of a country or grape though I found out the fruit is sourced from Languedoc, France (and the white is in fact Sauvignon Blanc). Each box contains the equivalent of four bottles of wine. The price - $39 per box – makes it a definite outlier among its box peers, most of which cost a fraction as much.

Was the high price a challenge when it came to selling the wines? I asked Gratsi’s CEO and founder Stephen Vlahos whom I reached at home in Alabama. On the contrary, Mr. Vlahos replied. The pricing was deliberate. “I didn’t want to compete with Bota Box. I almost wanted there to be sticker shock,” he added.

Mr. Vlahos wanted drinkers to feel a certain amount of pride when they brought an (upscale) box wine to a party- but he also wanted the wine to be accessibly styled. His model was the simple wine he drank in taverns and simple restaurants in Europe where drinkers don’t know the wine’s origin or name of the grape.

The sticker price of Gratsi clearly hasn’t been shocking: sales and production of Gratsi have climbed steadily upward since its launch in 2021- from 2,000 boxes the first year to over 500,000 boxes today, with the expectation of hitting 1 million next year. Most sales so far have been direct to consumer although the company now has a growing list of wholesale distributors in multiple states- and North Dakota may soon be on the list.

My state (New Jersey) is among those where Gratsi is distributed although it wasn’t easy to find at my local store – shelved in a small section of wines that included low-calorie, low-sugar and no-alcohol options under the dubious title “Lifestyle Wines.”

Since I don’t drink wine on account of my “lifestyle” (I don’t even know what mine might be labeled) and I don’t want to drink the same wine over and over again (the wine in the box, once opened, is said to stay fresh for a month when it’s refrigerated) I gave the rest of the Gratsi wines to my friend Tom who had a big family gathering planned at a beach house in Rhode Island.

Upon his return home Tom reported that the wines had been a big hit (particularly the red) with his family. The convenience, reliability and sheer amplitude of supply made everyone happy. Maybe I will suggest those descriptors as a selling point to my local retailer. They sound more compelling than “lifestyle wine” don’t you think?

A Good Non-Box Wine

Another sample wine I received and liked: Simonnet-Febrve Crémant de Bourgogne Brut- a creamy Champagne-method sparkling wine from a long-established Chablis domaine. It’s made predominantly from Chardonnay with a bit of Pinot Noir and priced around $20. Although I received this wine as a sample, I’d definitely buy a bottle or two.

A word about samples: The wines that appear in this column are wines that I’ve purchased unless otherwise noted.