With summer finally upon us, you may be excited to get outside and explore your surroundings. Luckily, California beverage makers have your back, and their production of ready-to-drink cocktails and wines that come in easy-to-carry boxes, cans and pouches continues to rise. Whether you’re headed to the backyard, the park down the road or farther afield, here are four new and notable portable options to consider packing.
Sans Wine Co.
Among the early entrants to the can space, Sans is the vision of Napa Valley couple Gina Schober and Jake Stover, whose day jobs are also in the wine industry (sales and vineyard management, respectively).
They work with organically farmed vineyards, including small lots of old-vine gems in Napa and Mendocino. The Rosé Bubbles is a standout new release, although a carbonic Carignan remains the most popular offering in the brand’s lineup.
Crispy Pig
Crispy Pig is a pre-blended Bloody Mary made with whiskey instead of vodka. Produced in San Francisco, it clocks in at just 10% alcohol by volume (abv) and includes ingredients like tomato paste, celery salt and maple syrup—i.e. only things you’d use at home or find at a bar, no high-fructose corn syrup. Just add a celery stalk.
Gaze
Produced in Sonoma County by Vintage Wine Estates, Gaze is billed as a wine cocktail made from Moscato blended with a range of ingredients that includes green tea, kombucha and coconut water, among others. Light in calories, low in alcohol and packaged in aluminum bottles, the brand encourages drinkers to slow down and take in their surroundings, to “stop and gaze,” and is meant to promote mindfulness.
Revelshine
An ardent hiker, biker, skier and concertgoer, Sonoma County winemaker and grape grower Jake Bilbro of Limerick Lane Cellars wanted to create a way to take wine where glass can’t easily go. So last year, he launched Revelshine Wines, a range of Russian River Valley selections packaged in lightweight aluminum bottles that are both refillable and recyclable. The line includes a white, red and rosé that are “bottled with purpose to explore, unplug and roam.”
Published: May 28, 2021
