We have to admit, we were intrigued. Is there such a thing as really good boxed wine? The brand Really Good Boxed Wine not only thinks so, but got master sommelier Andy Myers on board with it. If it sounds like something a CPG marketing type came up with, you’d be right. CEO and founder Jake Whitman came from Procter & Gamble but he also built connections in the wine business to get this concept off the ground. We spoke to Whitman to learn more.
Jake Whitman photo courtesy of Really Good Boxed Wine
What inspired you to create this brand?
The idea for Really Good Boxed Wine came as a consumer. I’d always loved the idea of boxed wine, because it solves lots of the problems I ran into with bottles. Boxed wine stays fresh for a long time after opening, so if I just wanted a glass or two, I didn’t have to risk tossing out half a bottle if I didn’t get back to it in time. It’s also so much more cost effective to buy, so if I wanted a lot of wine for any reason, I could save some money. And of course, the environmental part was always on my mind; I hated looking at my recycling bin after a dinner party and seeing piles of heavy glass bottles.
But whenever I bought a box, there was this big glaring problem: the wine wasn’t very good. And that was a dealbreaker for me, so we stopped buying boxed wine.
About a year ago, I was hanging out with my wife, brother, and some friends in a park, and we got on the topic of boxed wine. We started asking that fundamental question: “well...why isn’t there really good boxed wine?” It was something I’d been tossing around in my mind for a while, but I always assumed there was a technical reason why you couldn’t do it.
This time, my interest was piqued enough to dive into researching it, and I went down the rabbit hole. The more I read, the more I realized that it was a cultural problem and a perception issue more than a technical one.
The more I read, the more I started to believe consumers were finally ready. Screw tops and synthetic corks have become more accepted for higher-end wines over the past decade, and canned wines have exploded over the past five years or so. Plus, consumers were becoming more and more aware of the huge environmental impact of bottles. Boxed wine felt like the next frontier that solved some very real consumer problems with wine.
And while I have no professional background in wine, I have worked in 5 restaurants in my life, so I’ve been around guests’ interaction with wine for a long time. And since I started Really Good Boxed Wine, I’ve worked hard to surround myself with amazing people who are super knowledgeable about the wine industry to help grow the brand.