The Truth About Canned Wine: My Canned Wine Review

What’s the first thing you think of when you see canned wine? Cheap wine? Poor tasting wine? Overly sweet white wines that really shouldn’t be called wine at all? Maybe. But the canned wine industry is booming, and if you haven’t seen canned wine on your grocery store shelves yet, you will soon.

I was shopping at Trader Joe’s last week and noticed four varieties of canned wine on display. Four! Two reds, a white, and a rose. I hadn’t tried canned wine up to this point, but after seeing four varieties I decided this was the time to do it. The brand I found was Trader Joe’s’ brand called “Simpler Wines”. It is a budget-friendly wine (only a couple bucks a can), which could be good or really bad. I took a gamble on it considering many of the Trader Joe’s labels on bottled wine are actually pretty good. I was eager to see if the canned wine would surprise me. Commence my first canned wine review.

Before I get to the taste, there are some definite benefits to canned wine that need to be acknowledged.

Benefit #1:

First, for people like me who love to travel and explore the outdoors, preferably with a beverage in hand, we have thus far been limited to beer. Canned beer to be exact. And don’t get me wrong, I love craft beer. But sometimes on a cold night camping, reaching into an icy cooler to get an even icier beer just sounds like too much to beer…I mean, bear. Why not grab a nice can of red wine instead?

Benefit #2:

Canned wine is also much more incognito than bottled wine. I’m not endorsing bringing alcohol to public places where it isn’t allowed. But I’m also not naïve enough to think it doesn’t happen. So at least with canned wine you can be secretive about your illegal activity…I guess?

Benefit #3

Third, the cost is something to be considered. Now, most canned wines don’t appear to be extra-affordable yet. For a 4-pack of name brand canned wine (which, surprisingly, equates to 2 bottles of wine), you’ll often find yourself paying upwards of $30. Depending on your wine budget, this might be more than what you’re willing to spend. That said, if the momentum of the canned wine movement continues as it has thus far, prices may become a bit more competitive in the future. Maybe. Wishful thinking at least.

Benefit #4…I think?

I guess another benefit of drinking wine by the can could be that you’re not forced to drink an entire bottle before the wine goes bad…instead, you only have to drink the equivalent of half of a bottle at a time. I personally don’t relate to this issue very much, but maybe some do?

 

Commence the taste test.

I tried four varietals from the Trader Joe’s Simpler Wines brand: Chardonnay, Rosé, Red Blend, and Cabernet Sauvignon. All of them are Australian wines. I poured each wine into a glass before tasting because drinking canned wine doesn’t mean you should drink it out of a can.

The Chardonnay was up first, and I was pleasantly surprised.

It was a buttery Chardonnay with slight acidity and a full body of flavor. There was no “oaky” quality to it at all (which I personally love in my Chards, but I can still appreciate a no-oak version when it comes down to it). This Chard didn’t taste like it came from a can at all. Had someone poured me a glass without telling me where it came from, I never would have guessed it came from anywhere other than a bottle. Sip after sip it just became more enjoyable. What a great start to my taste test!

Next up: the Rosé.

This one was a bit underwhelming after the Chardonnay (maybe I tasted them in the wrong order). It was pleasant, fruity, and light, but lacked some body in my opinion. It wasn’t very acidic at all, but also wasn’t overly sweet. This wine seemed like it would be a perfect, inexpensive, summertime sip, especially for Rosé fans out there.

Onto the reds.

First up was the Red Blend.

After a pretty good Chard followed by a decent Rosé, I was hopeful for a good canned red. But, boy, was I disappointed. The Red blend was smooth to taste at least, but the flavor was more or less like cranberry juice. The aroma of the wine smelled like it came from a can, and the aftertaste left me with a metallic taste on my tongue. It also seemed very sweet for a red blend, a typical characteristic of cheap wine. After a couple sips of this (enough to form some tasting notes), I gave this Red Blend a hard pass and moved on to my final tasting.

Last was the Cabernet Sauvignon.

It couldn’t get any worse, right? Wrong. This tasting went from bad to worse when I took the first sip of the Cab. It was not nearly as sweet as the Red Blend, which just made it taste more like an aluminum can. I couldn’t even come up with any notes to describe the flavor (or lack thereof) …it was just plain bad. The smell of the wine was purely metallic, too. Needless to say, this wine (as well as the Red Blend) went straight down the drain.

So, would I buy this brand of canned wine again?

Maybe the Chardonnay or the Rosé, but I would never try either of the reds again. I was disappointed by this result because I was really hoping to find a good can of red wine. Maybe there is a reason most canned wine on the market so far is of the white, rosé, or sparkling wine variety.

Part two of this canned wine review will likely be the comparison between a bottle and a can of the same wine to really get a feel for how the can may or may not affect the flavor. Or, maybe I’ll just try different brands of canned wines to see if they can redeem themselves in my book! But for now, please excuse me while I work to restore my palate with a glass red wine…from a bottle.

Have you ever tried canned wine? What’s your canned wine review? Let me know in the comments below!