Why You Won't Find Boxed Champagne At The Liquor Store

Boxed wines are found in most liquor stores and are quite popular for being practical to tap out single glasses of wine, easy to store in the fridge, and more cost-effective, as the packaging is less expensive to produce and cheaper to transport. You would think that Champagne could be packaged in the same way, and with champers generally being a bit more pricey than wine, the more cost-effective boxed version would be highly sought after by lovers of bubbly. But, if you're searching for boxed Champagne on liquor store shelves, you've probably only seen bottles packaged in a box, smaller bottles in 4-packs, and even cans of bubbly -– but not bubbly packaged inside branded boxes in the typical bladders with dispensing taps.

This is because Champagne bottles hold immense pressure created by the bubbles infused into the wine that a boxed wine bladder just cannot withstand. Champagne bottles hold between 4 and 6 atmospheres of pressure, which is around 60 to 90 pounds per square inch. Put into layman's terms, that's about the same pressure you'd find in the tires of a double-decker bus. This pressure is constantly pushing outwards, which is why (unless you're opening Champagne the right way) a Champagne cork can pop with such immense velocity and to a great distance. Boxed wine bags work with gravity pressure, collapsing inwards as the wine is tapped out.

Bubbles are created in Champagne in two ways -– through fermentation in a tank or in the bottle itself (though it's significantly more involved and complicated to get to your deliciously bubbly end result). True Champagne originates from the region of Champagne in France. Otherwise, it's called sparkling wine and is made in the same two ways (called Méthode Cap Classique) or through an additional way of injecting carbon dioxide into the base wine to force bubbles into it.

Because bag-in-box (BiB) wines trade on their affordability and practicality, creating a Champagne version through fermentation wouldn't be a viable option as these take time and special equipment — and boxed wine cannot be aged the same way as bottled. So, injection of CO₂ into the liquid (called carbonation) would be the only option. This would be done in a tank, then have to be transferred to the bag, which would need to be strong enough to contain the high pressure of the carbonated wine.

Unfortunately, boxed wine bags still have a way to go in their design to be able to hold highly pressurized Champagne without exploding. They have weaker areas where the two halves meet, as well as where the tap is welded to the bag, which are prime areas for the carbonated wine to pop the bag open. They are also semi-permeable, meaning that tiny bits of air can leak into the bag, and when exposed to air, Champagne bubbles collapse (called diffusion), making the drink lose its effervescence and go flat.