From the latest Scholium Project tasting - Prince in His Caves Sauvignon Blanc (post can be found here) - I pull myself far out of the cellar into more of a big box retailer mentality and dive head first into a boxed wine. Boxed wine you say? Feel like the 80's, when Sutter Home ruled the boxed wine roost? It did to me when I was visiting my parents this weekend.

At their house, we opened a few bottles of white wine that we just picked up on our trip to Napa only days before - a Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and Newton Vineyard Red Label Chardonnay. Both of these wines were hits with them, but, when we opened a Newton Vineyard Red Label Claret, I knew we had gone 2 for 3, instead of securing a perfect record. Because of the miss, we started talking about what makes a wine good and the term "wine snob" was lobbed my way. Well, I don't actually consider myself a wine snob, but I started to wonder if I was becoming one. I do like to talk about wine, but only with those people who are actually interested. But, bottom line is that, I will try any wine, from any label, at any time. Doesn't mean I'll like it all, but, as you can see from my blog posts, my range of taste is pretty broad.

So, what better time than this for them to pull of a box of 2007 FishEye Pinot Grigio? It's about $15 - $20 for a 3L box - yes, that's the same amount of wine as in a double magnum - and the glass we all shared was the very last drop of that 3 liters. Usually, you don't squeeze a bottle of wine to get all the way to the bottom, but, in this case, we pulled that bladder straight out of the box and squeezed it like we were ringing out our shirts after being caught in a torrential downpour.

Once we had it rung out into the glass, it wasn't all that much different than the last 3 or 4 Pinot Grigio's I've tasted. Not much nose - green apple, maybe a little meyer lemon - but, then again, I didn't expect much on the nose. The taste is very lemony, very light and dry, with about as much finish as you might expect from a light, dry white wine. Overall, a nice white to have on hand, particularly when the weather starts to warm up.

And, let's be honest, the space a box takes up, especially after stepping on it to break it down, is a lot less than a double magnum bottle.

What you should do: Buy it and try it. If you like Sauvignon Blanc, this should treat you well. If you're self-conscious about drinking wine out of a box, then save an old bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and pour the wine into that bottle before serving. If your guests are wine snobs, it will be fun to see if they even notice.

My rating: 84