Pool Time = Canned Wine!

We’ve all been there. You’re headed to the pool, and you are craving some WINE (of course you are). But dang it—you can’t bring glass into the pool area! What do you do?? Is the day ruined??

Enter canned wine, coming to your pool day rescue. Forget the White Claws and the Truly cans. Sparkling water is a travesty (that is Katie’s humble though extremely unpopular opinion). Thankfully, there are many different canned wines to consider for your pool time! In the service of Wichita mankind, we decided to try several.

Canned wine # 1: Bev Gris, California Pinot Grigio.

Ok guys: we fully expected that canned wine would be a challenge for us. We opted to drink it straight from the can, since we wanted to simulate a pool experience. And we were actually pleasantly surprised that wine from a can is not bad! This particular wine has a lemon-lime character to it, and it has just a bit of fizz. This is not a wine cooler and it is not sweet. It’s a simple wine, and there’s not a lot of backbone to it, but that’s classic for Pinot Grigio in general. We thought this tasted as we would expect Pinot Grigio to taste, and overall it’s a pretty good easy-drinking-on-a-hot-day-at-the-pool wine.

Grade: for a canned wine, B-

Price: $17 for a 4-pack at Jacob Liquor

Canned Wine # 2: Dark Horse Sauvignon Blanc, California

This wine smells and tastes of grapefruit with even a hint of green bell pepper. This tastes like we’d expect a Sauvignon Blanc to taste, and we loved it for that. We were impressed with this as a canned wine and found it more flavorful than we expected. It’s a little flat, but overall, if we had to pick a white wine to have at the pool, we’d choose this one (though it has no fizz like the Bev Gris if that’s your thing).

Grade: B

Price: $5.50 per can at Jacob Liquor

Canned Wine # 3: Bev California Rosé Wine

This wine tastes like rosé should, and we happily enjoyed this one. Bart felt it tasted like the rosés he drank in Spain while walking the Camino. It’s a little fizzy, and it’s got a hint of raspberries and strawberries and that floral rose note that you like rosés to have. It’s like dancing in a flower garden on a warm day. For a canned wine, we were impressed.

Grade: A-

Price: $17 for a 4-pack at Jacob Liquor

Canned Wine # 4: Graham + Fisk’s Wine in a Can, Rosé Wine with Bubbles

Yeah, um, Katie did not like this one. There were a lot of exclamations after tasting this wine. To Katie, it tasted like liquid (I guess wine) strained through strong potpourri.

But to be fair: Bart and his wife Melissa, who helped us taste all these cans, did not have the same strong reaction. They both felt it hand a candy, or maybe more specifically bubblegum, quality to it, and Melissa mentioned it seemed to her closer to a wine cooler. It is not, however, sweet. Katie feels redeemed, though, that if choosing between canned rosés, all 3 would choose the Bev over this one.

Grade: Katie says C, Bart B-

Price: $4 per can at Jacob Liquor

Canned Wine # 5: Underwood Oregon Grown Pinot Noir

We wanted to like this one, because Oregon as a general rule makes some GREAT Pinot Noirs. However…this one came across to us as rather thin, without a lot of fruit flavor. It also has a woody character to it, but not like oak flavor. More like old wood boards.

Grade: C

Price: $7 per can at Jacob Liquor

Canned Wine # 6: Graham + Fisk’s Wine in a Can, California Red Wine

Ok, so Katie may have not loved this winemaker’s rosé, but they redeemed themselves on this one. This was a happy surprise of a wine with blackberries and black plums, and the vanilla bean notes of oak, but it wasn’t overpowering. This isn’t a terribly complex wine, but as a canned wine, this was very enjoyable. In a strange way, it almost had a taste of that old Orville Redenbacher’s caramel popcorn where you had to melt the caramel on the popcorn in the microwave and then shake it up. Nostalgia… This was Bart and Katie’s choice out of the canned red wines.

Grade: B+

Price: $4 per can at Jacob Liquor

Canned Wine # 7: Crafters Union Daring & Elegant Red Blend, California

This is a bigger red wine with a big oak flavor. You get a real big vanilla punch with this one, as well as some real caramel notes. It reminded us of trying those bourbon barrel red wines for the Kentucky Derby. Melissa is a fan of those big, oaky red wines, and this was her favorite of the reds. And that’s something we love about wine: there’s no right answer for what is best, every person has their own likes and dislikes, and you should just drink what you like!!

Grade: B- (Melissa disagrees and says A-)

Price: $7 per can at Jacob Liquor

There you have it. All kinds of canned wines to enjoy at the pool this summer. We hope you try them all and let us know what you think is best!