Trove_04cabernetWine Blogging Wednesday is upon us again people and this time around, that means wines in non-traditional packaging.

I’ll admit is–as open as I was to the theme, I had my reservations. First of all, I’ve never had a bag-in-box wine that I’ve found even gulpable. Second, I was worried that we’d lose a lot of our wine geek participants.

I guess we’ll find out in the next day or two if some of our more "high class" WBWers stuck with us and expanded their horizons a little bit. I hope they do and I hope they found some interesting wines, even if they are more interesting as curiosities than they are as something worth drinking.

I actually had a much harder time finding a boxed wine than I expected. I didn’t want to choose Franzia or Almaden for WBW. I knew I wouldn’t like those. And a local wine shop that used to have single serving boxes of Bandit Trebbiano didn’t have them anymore when I went there.

So, after stopping at three shops, I came upon this three-liter box of 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon from Trove. It cost me $22, which when you consider that it holds the equivalent of four regular bottles, is a pretty good deal.

IF the wine is good.

And you know what…I wouldn’t call it "good" or something I’d normally rave about, but it was much better than I expected.

Is it simple? Yup. But you know what? It’s not offensive in the least and you can even taste just a little bit of varietal character. Lots of red berries, especially cherries, throughout, fruity but not Australian or overdone. Very little oak and rather juicy, medium body.

I’d serve this at a big bash attended by people who enjoy wine but aren’t geeks. It seems like a perfectly fine wine to serve at a big BBQ in the summer where burgers and grilled chicken are the primary fare.