There is yet another new twist on the wine "bottle."

First, screw tops started taking the place of the venerable corked bottle. Then, boxed wines made a comeback after an abysmal venture in the 1980s, when upscale vintners started using them for their prize-winning juice.

Now, the box has grown soft. More wineries are putting their products in soft-sided boxes that can easily be tucked into a crowded refrigerators or pantry shelves. And, the containers are growing smaller. Several vintners are choosing to "bottle" their wines in "bullets," 250-ml., soft-sided boxes that look a lot like long, narrow juice boxes -- without the attached straw, of course.

It's enough to make a cork sniffer's head spin.

But the newer packaging makes a lot of sense for a number of reasons, as wineries strive to make wine more convenient and accessible to consumers.

Wine in a box, soft-sided or not, is really wine inside a plastic bladder (thank goodness they don't call them "bladder wines"). An attached tap lets the wine out but doesn't let in air -- wine's nemesis, because oxygen causes wine to go south. The technology means boxed wines last more than a month after opening compared to mere days for wine in a bottle -- a plus for people who enjoy just the occasional glass. Wine retailers say boxes stack up well to bottles since they're recyclable, easier to carry and store and cheaper to produce.

Still, the romantic notion of sharing a bottle of wine is a tough one to shake. "A loaf of bread, a box of wine and thou" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

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