THERE are few things more stupid to take on a picnic than clanking bottles of wine.

First, they are heavy things to cart around. Second, unless they are screw top, you'll find you've left your corkscrew at home, and finally you have to take the empties back to the nearest bottle-bank.

Bottles are also fragile and easily broken, leaving shards of glass around that can injure children and animals as well as acting as prisms to the sun's rays, and starting fires in the countryside.

So, this year box clever and drop a couple of three litre boxes of wine into your coolbox and save yourself a whole lot of hassle. After all, you'll be able to pour some 32 decent glasses of wine from each 10.5 17 21cm cube!

If you're taking a box of white wine, then leave it in the fridge overnight to cool down and in the morning put it in the coolbox, perhaps place one of those handy freezer blocks alongside it to help the job along.

There is no shortage of bag-in-box wines. Sainsbury's, for example, lists 31, although they won't all be in your local store. These include Blossom Hill Zinfandel Blush at an astonishing £17.15 when my local licensed newsagent is offering me three bottles of this sugar-sweet horror for £10, so why I should pay the equivalent to £4.85 a bottle beats me?

Waitrose lists 15 boxes, ranging in price from £12.49 for a pretty basic French white and red, to £15.99 for its very acceptable Good Ordinary Claret, with an attractive aromatic Chilean Sauvignon Blanc at £14.99.

But unless you are going to Glyndebourne for the opera, when bottles of chilled champagne are essential, picnics should be simple and inexpensive. For sheer value for money you'll find a pair of most acceptable Vin de Pays d'Oc at Aldi, at a very affordable £9.99. These are an unassuming Chardonnay, with a decent weight on the palate, and a clean red-berry fruit and pepper Shiraz.

True, these are not great wines, but they are just the thing for a picnic, or even a barbecue. Simply open the flap, pull out the tap and let everyone help themselves. But do remember to take plastic glasses with you!