Jon, my cave has a U-shaped tool to extract the 'spigot' from the sack neck. They then flush out any residual wine with water from a hose and then fill from a large storage vessel. Hence why the 5l or 10l boxes can be reused.
As to the plastic bottles, these are no different than a glass wine bottle that is not emptied quite quickly. One has a screw top, the other a plug or the cork is pushed back into the neck. The wine, once opened needs to be kept in a fridge or cold area; our atelier adjoining our house is commonly cool. That said, I find 1.5l of CDR lasts about two days or less

Thanks cjm - Ive never heard of that gadget... really interesting.

When I use bottles and dont finish the wine (very rare) I use the vac-u-vin gadget that takes out all the air via a 1-way valve and works well...for a few days, but buying the 2l amounts means you must drink it quick - and its nearly 3 bottles worth so for us as a couple having a few glasses an evening - that would be too tempting to finish! We could also easily manage a 1.5l in 2 days..... I also don't think the vacuum would work in a collapsible plastic bottle - or if the size of the bung is right. I once got a great 5l glass bottle from Italy as a present - fantastic, we finished a lot of it at a party but overnight the remainder 'turned' and it was all milky - weird.

I hope the caves would accept 0.5l bottles and as long as we bought enough of it e.g 5l+ they would have no problem to fill up multiple small bottles... (doesn't mean we would drink any less, but must at least pretend to try!)

Thanks
Jon

PS People that drink less than 63 units a week have a longer lifespan than tee-totallers. After 63 the T-totallers win (according to QI). I love searching high and low to find the one good piece of work that justifies drinking much more (forget the rest )

My cave has a plentiful supply of 1.5l plastic water bottles for free use, plus a range of hard plastic 5l containers (you can buy them full via many supermarkets) if you are stuck. Also an aged 5l container (bag okay, but cardboard nackered from being opened, closed and made wet, though I see many locals with broad width parcel taped boxes, trussed up like a precious object [don't you just love the French approach to economy]) if it is decided to commit the box to recycling you are likely to be offered a spare 5l box (always a few lying around) as a cadeaux for your custom.

Thanks cjm, very kind re the offer + the info...

Jon

Jon, it must be the size of glass you are using, or should that be the small size of glass you are using

I find a 70cl bottle has about 25% left after only a couple of glasses (the BH is now almost teetotal) which becomes the starter for the next evening.


this has been an interesting thread, especially as the only co-operative we have round here is for all the olive growers. I heard of these "caves" a number of years ago but the BH got a job in Granada and have yet to find a bodega that operates this way.

rgds

Aaaah Domino, you drink the UK large sized glass 250ml... that surprises many French. 3 glasses to a bottle. Who says we are binge drinkers.

I went through a phase where we bought only boxes, the logic being that with a box you done feel 'obligated to finish the bottle' a couple of glasses and that's fine. I'm not sure that worked actually... as there seemed a never ending supply - 'one more for the road?' (Even though we were at home).

Lucky you a BH that can be the designated driver

Thanks
Jon

I have been away for a few days so missed this thread.

We have several brilliant co-ops who do both bidons and bag in box - both of which can be re-usable. 20 years ago we used to buy 10l bidons and bottle the wine to keep, far too much faff.

These days we do bag in box - we even get loyalty points!

Hi Jon, no, no, no!!

It won't keep in an ordinary screw top bottle the same as it doesn't once opened in a non vacuum cubi. It only keeps in the vacuum packed wineboxes.

I have to say my wine lasts certainly a couple of months in a bag box. As to sizes of glasses, I decided to check my intake and mark a number of glasses. I tried four, not bad I thought, but then (I am using water here) thought I'd use the glass my OH prefers. Three glasses to the same mark. So, I have more glasses, but drink no more than my SOH!