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The humorous, colloquial noun bladder-pack designates bag-in-box wine—i.e., inexpensive wine that is sold in a plastic or foil pouch, with a spigot through which the contents can be poured, packaged in a sturdy cardboard box.
This noun occurs, for example, in the following from The wine wizards of Oz, about wine-making in Australia, by Charlotte Fleming, published in the Leatherhead Advertiser (Leatherhead, Surrey, England) of Thursday 13th August 1992 [page 2, column 8]:
This passion for experiment and willingness to fail—as long as you learn from the failure—is what makes it possible for Australia to make everything from bag-in-box Chateau Cardboard (or, with true Antipodean bluntness *, the bladder-pack) to a world-class red like Penfold’s Grange.
* Note: In the sense of bag-in-box wine, the noun bladder-pack is often said (in British-English texts) to be of Australian-English origin (cf. also, below, quotations 1 & 2). But, in fact, the noun bladder-pack seldom occurs in Australian English, and only posteriorly to the first British-English uses (cf., below, in quotation 3, “call it what you like—even bladder pack”, which may suggest that the Australian wine writer and critic Huon Hooke was reluctant to use the noun bladder-pack).
—Synonyms of bladder-pack: cardbordeaux and Chateau Cardboard.
—Cf. also:
– the humorous, colloquial expression Château Plonk, which is used of wine, especially of cheap wine of inferior quality;
– the humorous, colloquial expressions chateau tap-water|Château-la-Pompe, which liken tap-water to a grand cru.
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—Preliminary note: An early Canadian-English acceptation of the noun bladder-pack: pouch-pack milk:
Apparently before bladder-pack came to be used of bag-in-box wine, this noun was applied to pouch-pack milk when it was introduced in British Columbia, Canada, in 1977. The earliest occurrence of the noun bladder-pack that I have found is from the column From Your Side, by Evan Evans-Atkinson, published in The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) of Saturday 12th March 1977 [page 49, column 2]:
How does raising the price of milk grab you?
That’s right. We’re told that it will amount to a hilarious five cents for the four-litre bladder pack.
The following explanations are from Pouch pack milk: Is it or is it not a nuisance?, by Nicole Parton, published in The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) of Friday 19th June 1981 [page B1, column 2]:
It’s probably academic to complain about pouch pack milk—the only four-litre milk packaging legally permitted for sale in this province.
You and I already know the problems: The packages admit light, turning the milk bad faster than cartoned milk; they flop all over the fridge, and are inconvenient to store; they leak—not often, but enough to be a nuisance.
But complaining about the bags, four years after their introduction, is not my intent. […]
[…]
Personally, I have never really come to like or accept the cold, floppy bags, or “bladder packs” as some people persist in calling them. And when I think back to their introduction, by order-in-council, without debate and without public input, I still become just a little bristly because we have never been given a choice.
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These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences that I have found of the noun bladder-pack used in the sense of bag-in-box wine:
1-: From the column The Scotsman Diary, by the Scottish journalist Anthony Troon (1935-2020), published in The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland) of Thursday 12th April 1984 [page 11, column 1]:
Pack drill
The wine-tasting in the River Room of London’s Savoy Hotel this morning possibly marks the beginning of a new oenological era: the wines to be sampled will all be in boxes, the hitherto much deprecated alternative to bottles. […]
Although the three-litre boxes with plastic spigots were introduced to the UK as recently as 1981, they now account for 10 per cent of all wine sales. In Australia, this cask-and-carry phenomenon is known affectionately as a “bladder pack.”
2-: From the column From the wine cellar, by Tim Curran, published in the Evening Argus (Brighton, Sussex, England) of Wednesday 16th April 1986 [page 14, title & column 6]:
The lure of the bladder pack
Australian wines are becoming more popular in Britain […].
[…]
The Aussies must be pleased with their export success as their home market has become fairly saturated. Beer consumption there is on a downturn while wine sales have moved strongly towards the 4-litre box market.
Known, in typically forthright Aussie style, as bladder packs, the boxes sell at the equivalent of about 50p a bottle-size unit compared with 75p for a bottle of beer.
3-: From the column Wine, by the Australian wine writer and critic Huon Hooke, published in The Sun-Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Sunday 13th July 1986 [page 120, column 5]:
Good Riverland wines
When the winecask (cellar pack, bag-in-box, call it what you like—even bladder pack) appeared in the seventies it changed the wine scene forever. A notable casualty of the cask explosion was the reputation of the Murray River districts as quality wine producers.
It stands to reason that if your main activity is churning out standard grade vin ordinaire for casks, recognition for high-quality wine will be hard to come by. The main Murray River wine district—the Riverland—produces 40 per cent of Australia’s wine and has been maligned perhaps a little unfairly.
