Wine drinkers travelling light this summer to the beach or a barbecue have plenty of choice. Not so long ago, unlovely bag-in-box wines were the only option for those keen to lug less weight around in their picnic baskets. Twenty-five centilitre cans and small bottles of wine were hardly worth the effort. Then, last summer, sturdy plastic wine bottles and 1-litre Tetrapaks popped up on lots of wine shelves, but the quality of the wine within, mainly from Australian producers such as Banrock Station, Andrew Peace and Wolf Blass, ranged from dire to drinkable-if-you-were-desperate. No wonder discerning festival-goers took to decanting their best outdoor swigs into plastic bottles instead.

Now you’ll also find pre-filled foil-sealed plastic wine glasses and 1-litre or 1.5l “easy pack” plastic pouches. Ready-to-drink glasses of wine seem a great idea, but the versions I tasted prove that wine technology is way off delivering clean wines in these containers. Sainsbury’s non-vintage Italian trio, Garganega-Pinot Grigio, Salento Rosé and Merlot delle Venezie (£3.74 and the equivalent of half a bottle) all started fine, although the shape of the wobbly plastic glass is not ideal. Sadly, after a few minutes’ exposure to the air, all three had fallen flat, developing some thoroughly unpleasant, bitter, rubbery smells and tastes. It was the same with Echo Falls’ plastic glasses of sticky California wine (Waitrose, £4.09 for 37.5cl worth of wine). Bring along this evil plastic wine glass duo, and wasps and flying ants will seem welcome picnic pals by comparison.

The surprising winner of my alternative wine package tasting was the resealable easy pack. Arniston Bay’s 2007 Pinotage Rosé and 2007 Chenin Blanc-Chardonnay were no better in the 1.5l plastic pouch format than they are in a bottle, proving what wine buyers dub the garbage-in, garbage-out principle. Yet La Baume’s 1-litre pouches (Waitrose, £7.49) are worth buying. Both are humble, non-vintage vin de pays d’Oc, but La Baume’s Sauvignon Blanc bursts with intense, verdant, zesty fruit, complete with some delicious, grassy, green tomato-spiked flavours that will echo the bosky greenness of the ideal picnic spot. Ditto the well-made ripe, herby, curranty fruit of La Baume’s Cabernet Sauvignon.

The added bonus with lightweight packaging like this is that it gets the green vote, being more eco-friendly to produce, fill, transport and recycle than heavyweight glass wine bottles. Even the notoriously traditional French, who so hate screwcaps, have embraced wine cartons with gusto. Boisset, the big Burgundy merchant house, now has its popular French Rabbit Languedoc wine carton range on offer throughout the giant Novotel and Sofitel hotel group. Glass may not always be the container of choice.

jane.macquitty@thetimes.co.uk

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