He counts on nature for the view and a cardboard box for the drink.

"A ride down the Colorado River or a four-wheel drive along the White Rim Trail is a tough landscape to get a bottle of wine through," said Wood, a co-owner of Holiday Expeditions in South Salt Lake.

Boxed wine - a wine-filled plastic bladder inside a box - does not break; it is easier to pack than a bottle, and it doesn't require a corkscrew, making it the perfect package for picnics, camping, boating and other outdoor activities.

Besides having a recyclable container, boxed wine stays fresher since the wine is never exposed to air - the ultimate enemy of wine. A boxed wine can last more than a month after opening, compared to only days for a bottle, a bonus for those who like to drink only an occasional glass of wine.

Today, a new generation of "bag-in-a-box" wines has emerged on the liquor store shelves. And unlike the sweet, pink headache-inducing versions from a few decades ago, the wines are coming from top wine producers and are made with premium grape varietals, such as shiraz, pinot grigio and cabernet sauvignon - wines that do not have to be aged.

Wine experts have even given these boxed beverages a more gentrified name: "cask wines."

And they are a bargain. A 3-liter box is about the same as four regular 750-milliliter bottles of wine. The premium boxed wines range from $16 to $20 at a state liquor store.

Cask wine still only accounts for 20 percent of all table wine sold, but its convenience and price means it is selling "considerably faster than any other wine segment," according to an October 2005 trend report from ACNielsen.

Marketing has played a major role in the boxed wine success. Advertisers are targeting U.S. consumers with active lifestyles as well as those who favor casual entertaining in the backyard. With the wine industry facing an oversupply, wine drinkers can expect the advertising and unique packaging - look for such things as aluminum cans and Tetra Pak cartons - to continue into the future.

Aussie connection: Credit Australia for the boom, says Brett Clifford, the premium wine buyer for Utah. The winemakers Down Under invented the plastic bladder that holds the wine, and the country now packages half its wine in cardboard.

It is those Australian brands, as well as a few from California, that are making their way to U.S. liquor store shelves and helping end the old stereotype that good wine only comes in a bottle.

"They made a package that is user-friendly, and people gravitate to that," said Clifford, a big proponent of anything that makes wine less intimidating and more accessible. Clifford also is happy to see a growing number of wines with screw-cap tops.

A recent French spin-off from the bag-in-the-box are the octagonal Tetra Pak containers called ePods. Reminiscent of a children's milk or juice box, these brightly colored containers - filled with French rabbit wines - are being touted as ecofriendly alternatives to glass since they reduce packaging waste and are made from renewable materials.

Unlike the cask wine, however, the four French rabbit wines (pinot noir, chardonnay, merlot and cabernet sauvignon) are not vacuum-packed and should be consumed with in a few months of purchase and within a few days of opening.

"The whole idea is to drink it as soon as possible," said Clifford. "Don't save them."

Bag beginnings: Clifford said bag-in-a-box wines hit shelves in the United States in the late 1970s, and Utah was one of the first states to sell them. Through the years, despite the large number of teetotalers, Utah has become one of the largest consumers of boxed wines in the country, Clifford said.

"In Utah, we are always into bargains," he joked.

The active, outdoor lifestyle is probably another factor, says Gus Magann, president of Vine Lore, a wine brokerage firm in Utah.

"We see sales spike in the summer months," said Magann, whose firm sells some of the new premium boxed wines to the state, including Black Box cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay from California and Hardys chardonnay and shiraz from Australia. Magann said people are surprised to learn the cask wines have a pleasant taste.

"It's the same wine that goes in the bottles, not the bad stuff that we have traditionally associated with box wine," he said.

Other outdoor options: Skeptics, who cannot bring themselves to buy boxed wine, can still enjoy wine in the outdoors. There are many new products made from unique materials that will help keep bottles from breaking, said Mike Packard, the outdoor manager at Salt Lake City's REI, 3285 E. 3300 South.

The BYO Bag, a sleek insulated carrier made of neoprene (the same material as wet suits) has become the most popular way to carry a wine bottle on a picnic or to an outdoor concert, he said. There also are modern Bota bags that do not leak like their leather predecessors as well as old fashioned flasks.

But for those who can eschew the naysayers, the bag-in-a-box is the most versatile outdoor option.

"My hard-core camping friends take the bag out of the box when they pack," said Packard, adding that later, when the bag is empty, "they use it as a camp pillow."

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Contact Kathy Stephenson at kathys@sltrib.com or 801-257-8612. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com.

Outside-the-box picks

Here are a few boxed wines worth tapping into this summer:

Black Box Napa Valley Chardonnay, $19.95.

Black Box Cabernet Sauvignon, $19.95.

Hardy's Stamp of Australia South Eastern

Australia Shiraz, $15.95

Hardy's Stamp of Australia South Eastern Chardonnay, $15.95