Canned Wine, Boxed Wine & Top Tips for Wine on the Go

Canned Wine, Boxed Wine & Top Tips for Wine on the Go
An RVer guide to enjoying wine while traveling in your rolling home.
By: Jon & Nadia Bajuelo

RV camping is as comfortable as it gets both outdoors and on the road. You’ve got your own bed, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a shower all to go. You’re rolling down the road in a portable cabin.  

Unfortunately, not everything you might want to bring along is as portable; wine chief among these. These two wine enthusiasts might be a little biased, but it’s a problem campers have been trying to solve for years. 

Glass bottles, stemware, and the storage of these items are all tricky in an RV. With the first of many occasions calling for wine coming up on Valentine’s Day (not that we need an excuse), we’re here to help with three ways RVers can make wine more portable.  

1. Know Where to Store Wine in Your RV

Wine is sensitive to light and temperature abuse. Storing your wine bottles in hot temperatures or bright areas is a sure way to skunk up your wine. So, the same rules for storing wine in your house still apply in your RV. 

Store your wine in a cool, dark place. Upper cabinets in your RV get the hottest, so store low. Try a lower drawer or kitchen cabinet. 

Protect your wine. Don’t forget that what you experience as rolling down the road is more like jolting and rattling down the road for the belongings in your RV. Help your wine bottles survive the ongoing mini earthquake by wrapping them in a bag or putting them in a wine tote. Be sure to remember that it’s always possible cabinets and drawers could open when your RV is in motion.

Find the right storage spot. In our Trend, we’ve placed our wine bottles under the sink. We also often stash our wine bottles inside our covered sink basin while driving. The storage underneath dinette benches works well, too. 

When choosing a spot, don’t forget to make sure a heating duct doesn’t run behind that spot. You don’t want to find yourself heating up your wine all night on quick overnight stays before reaching your destination. 

If you’d rather not deal with storing wine bottles in a moving RV, you could also just wait until you reach your destination to pick up your wine. Or, you could decide to skip glass altogether.

2. Try Canned & Boxed Wine

Canned and boxed wines have come a long way. More than ever, finding quality, portable, RV-friendly wine is easy. 

Canned Wine 

Craft beer shed the canned-is-low-quality stigma, and now wine is on the same mission. Canned wine sales have been rising year-over-year, so we’d say it’s going well.

Cans, unlike bottles, effectively protect wine from light damage. They can be more environmentally friendly than glass, and they’re perfect for campgrounds not allowing glass bottles. Concerned about taste? Don’t worry, a special lining keeps canned wine free from an aluminum taste.

For RVers, ease of storage is the greatest advantage. Not only are cans compact, they also don’t break.

Top Canned Wine for RVers

Before we jump into some canned wines you’ve got to try, let’s make sure you’ll still make it to your morning hike!  

Keep in mind most cans are 375mL, which is equal to half a bottle of wine. The 250mL cans are roughly a third of a bottle of wine (a glass and a half). A few options come in 187mL cans, which are equal to one glass of wine. 

For Relaxing Under the Awning

Underwood Pinot Gris
375mL/can, find it at most regular grocery stores, online, and wine shops.
One of Oregon-based Union Wine Company’s three brands, Underwood’s Pinot Gris is their most popular offering (with their Pinot Noir following closely behind). Expect a fruity wine with the crispness Oregon wines are known for. Not sure canned wine is for you? At Underwood, the same wine that goes in their bottles goes in their cans.

Dark Horse Pinot Grigio
375mL/can, find it at most regular grocery stores, online, and wine shops.
Another well-liked, easy to find canned option from California. Now that you’re getting the hang of this canned wine thing, add a camp-side cheese board to go with this one.

House Wine Brut Bubbles
375mL/can, find it at most regular grocery stores, online, and wine shops. 
This dry sparkling from Washington is made for celebrating. If you ask us, anytime you find yourself relaxing under an RV awning is cause for celebration. These guys also assure us the wine in the cans is the same as the bottles. 

When Firing Up the Campsite Grill

Nomadica Red Blend
250mL/can, find it online, and select wine shops in CA, DE, IL, MA, NJ, NY, and PA.
With a name like that, how is this not the perfect canned wine for RVers? Reds tend to be harder to find in cans, but this dry yet fruity blend is worth looking for, especially if it’s steak night. 

Alloy Wine Works Central Coast Chardonnay
375mL/can, find it online, and select Whole Foods, small markets, and wine shops.
This one’s out of Paso Robles, one of our favorite California wine regions. Alloy Wine Works focuses specifically on canned wines. They recommend you chill this one to bring out the lemon, pear, and almond flavors.

On the Road

Infinite Monkey Theorem Dry Hopped Sauvignon Blanc
375mL/can, find it at the wineries, online, and select Total Wine, BevMo, and wine shops.
We find it fun to mix in winery visits with our nature destinations. This urban winery is a fun stop if you’re going through Denver or Austin. Known for their unique wines, this one is a slightly carbonated offering with hints of lychee and grapefruit. They get their grapes from Colorado’s Western Slope and the High Plains of Texas. 

Sofia Blanc de Blancs
187mL/can, find it at the winery, online, regular grocery stores, Target, BevMo, and wine shops.
A tour of California’s natural wonders and iconic sites isn’t complete without a tour of California’s wine region. While there, a must-stop is Francis Ford Coppola Winery. Their single-serve canned offerings come with a bit of sparkle and a straw! If you can’t quite make it, four-packs of their canned minis are popping up in more stores. 

Boxed Wine 

Boxed, even more so than canned, has a bit of an image problem to overcome. But once fully informed, we think you’ll fall for boxed wine just as hard as we have. Who can’t love a little personal, counter-top wine cask? Let us explain.

Boxed wine was horrible ... in the 80s. But it has also come far since then. Boxed wine stays fresher much longer than bottles – like 4-6 weeks longer! Actually stored in bags within the box, the wine isn’t exposed to air when you open it. 

Sure, it won’t age in the box like in a bottle or can, but are any of us really aging wines in our RVs? 

The packaging also brings tons of savings. A boxed wine usually has a 3L bag of wine inside - that’s four bottles of wine! A very compact four bottles, too. 

Boxes don’t break, they’re easy to store, they won’t roll around the RV or fridge, and they come with a built-in spigot. What’s not to love?

Box wines are made for everything we all love about RVing: camping, hiking, tailgating, relaxing with friends, and grilling. You’re in total control of your wine serving, pour as much or as little as you want. 

Top Boxed Wine for RVers

Bota Box
3L or 500mL, find it at most regular grocery stores, online, and wine shops.
The price is so right, Wine Enthusiast has crowned some of their offerings “Best Buys,” and you can find them almost everywhere. As if that’s not enough, they even have 500mL minis (that’s three glasses). We highly recommend their Malbec and their Nighthawk Black Bold Cabernet Sauvignon. These make great everyday wines. 

Black Box
3L or 500mL, find it at most regular grocery stores, online, and wine shops.
Another well-priced, easy to find box wine. While we’re partial to Bota Box, the Black Box’s Cabernet Sauvignon out of Chile is definitely worth trying. 

Bandit Wines
1L or 500mL, find it at some grocery stores, wine shops, CVS, Whole Foods, or online.
They’ve definitely got the adventurer in mind. We love that they’ve even partnered up with the National Park Foundation in the past. They still donate to them through the non-profit, 1% for the Planet. You can find Bandit Wines in convenient 500 mL Tetra Paks and in a larger 1L size (that’s about seven glasses of wine). Their Pinot Grigio is a favorite.

3. Bring Your RV-Friendly Wine Accessories

Here are a few items to pack in the RV. 

Manual Corkscrew
Your favorite wine probably doesn’t come boxed or canned. So, you likely won’t be ditching glass bottles entirely, even on trips. Don’t forget a corkscrew and remember power is never a 100% guarantee in the RV. 

RV-Friendly Wine Glasses
We personally love Lifefactory’s silicone-wrapped wine glasses. Made of glass and stemless, you can actually get a nice grip unlike ‘residential’ stemless glasses. Stainless steel wine tumblers are another portable, unbreakable option. Don’t forget you won’t be drinking straight from the wine box spigot, and you might be interested in sharing some of the canned wines. 

Wine Totes
If you’re going with glass bottles, you might want to put them in a wine tote or wine box, before storing them in the RV for some cushioning. Lifefactory has a great option, but there are many different options.

Wine2Go Portable Wine Bottle
Another option for bringing along glass wine bottles is a foldable wine bottle. They’ve made sure the taste of your wine is not affected. 

It’s totally possible to take your wine to go. Save, pin, or bookmark this article and come back to it when you’re heading out on your summer trips. Let us know what you think about canned and boxed wines as you try them. Cheers!