Bottle Guides
Canned Wine For Your Camping Trip (Or Half-Assed Hike)
By Aimee Rizzo
Bringing easily-shatterable glass bottles with you into the wilderness is not the best idea for obvious reasons. That’s why canned wine was invented, I think. From earthy reds you can sip by a smoky campfire and pair with a few lightly-charred s’mores to piquette spritzers meant to stand in for your typical cold beer post-half-assed hike, here are some stupendous aluminum-enveloped grape juices to consume while becoming one with the forest. Ready your Yetis.
Farm Fizz is essentially a country song in liquid form. Now, what does that mean? I’m not entirely sure, but if this spritzy white blend could carry a tune, it would definitely sing about blue jeans and blonde hair and driving a pickup truck in its rural hometown with the radio cranked up and the windows cracked open. It’s a thirst-quenching thundershock of green fruits and vegetal stuff - think kiwi, pear, granny smith apple, raw fennel, starfruit, honeydew melon, and a lime gummy tartness that just hits right after doing some kind of exhausting outdoor physical activity, like putting together a tent, or watching your significant other as they put together a tent.
No shade thrown to any other winery churning out canned wine, but Old Westminster produces the best. There, I said it. This fizz-o-rific, low-ABV orange piquette could easily replace any coriander-laden stone fruit-forward IPA that’s chilling in your camp cooler. And I know it’s tempting to pack the car with a 36-rack of light beer for a two-night trip. But back away from the hop gazpacho, because this funky, peachy, coral-colored wine could easily be mistaken for a salty gose, or a kinda wheaty Capri Sun. Refreshing juice with a bit of a sourdough-like tang that’ll pair well with the random hodgepodge of stuff you’ll snack on, from vegan hot dogs to Cool Ranch Doritos to homemade peanut butter oat bites.
This field blend of Cab Franc, Noiret and Riesling sports a sharp funky brininess you’d get from a jar of Kalamata olives, but to be clear, this is no liquified Greek salad - there’s a heap more exciting things happening. The coolest part about a can of Wild Arc’s rosato piquette is that it transitions from day to night seamlessly - you can reap the benefits of refreshing spiced red cherry-berry popsicle vibes while the air is humid and muggy and you’re grazing on foil packet corn-on-the-cob, but then there’s this peppery, fig-y, currant punch that sails you through to the campfire hours at dusk - which gets amplified once it starts to lose that sub-zero chill from your cooler.
This is your at-the-top wine to pop open once you summit whatever cliff you just scaled. I like to call Loro’s Sauvignon Blanc piquette “hiking water” (please be sure to also hydrate with real H20) - this can of flat Sprite disguised as Sauvignon Blanc is the not-stereotypically-grassy, lemon-lime zing you need as you stand on a mountain, a gatekeeper to the wind, with nary a care in the world about your blisters and pit stains. When you have all the fruit-and-nuts flavor of plump golden raisins and raw hazelnuts in a cylinder of aluminum, it does a way better job providing post-hike satisfaction than a limp Ziploc baggie of trail mix ever could.
This can of rosé infused with various springtime aromatics is everything you wished Cranberry Canada Dry tasted like - spicy with a gingered bite, and just a tiny squeeze of zesty lemon, it’d be perfect on a scorcher of a day with salmon burgers, grilled vegetable kabobs, and/or it’d also rock with salted pretzels or a handful (followed by the entire can) of Pringles.
There are people who grill burgers and sausages on coals in-between fistfuls of Chex Mix crumbs while camping, and then there are people who haul along a portable pizza oven, or all of the ingredients to prepare rockfish ceviche tostadas preceded by a plank of charcuterie and cheese. I don’t know who those latter people are, but they do exist. So if you’re planning something a little *elevated* for your night under the stars, I’d love to point you in the direction of Las Jaras’ can of white. It’s got this floral honeysuckle, golden delicious apple-y thing going on, and a citrus curd-like kick that’ll punch up a fancified spread. Why you wouldn’t just want a Johnsonville brat on a store-brand bun is beyond me, but what can you do? Keep in mind that Las Jaras also produces a canned red and rosé, too.
Oh, hello, s’mores wine. Sans’ can of red is ripe, juicy, and doesn’t dry your whole mouth out like other oakier reds would, which makes it ideal for an evening sitting by a crackling fire eating sweet graham cracker cavity sandwiches until your hair smells like the inside of a chimney. A few squares of rich Hershey’s milk chocolate blanketed by toasty molten marshmallow would really kickstart the fruitiness along with that terrific little dried cranberry-raspberry rhubarb stickiness. Don’t be afraid to throw the can on ice during the day - this is awesome when chilled.