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 ‘Chances are, by this July, you can order the blue wine,’ suggests a recent Article in the New Indian Express. “We would like to start with the biggest cities in the country: New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. All of them during the current year 2017,” says Aritz López, co-founder of Gik, reportedly adding, “We would like to start with the biggest cities in the country: New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad-all of them during the current year 2017.” If successful, India would perhaps be the 21st country where the wine would have made inroads. With a claimed sale of 50,000 bottles already, this would be a commendable achievement for a company owned and run by 6 young entrepreneurs with no wine knowledge but with fresh and bubbly ideas to promote a brand new concept and shake things up in an industry.
The group with all the founding partners of Blue Wine under 30, started the blue wine “to shake things up and have fun” in a country (Spain) where wine is an established tradition. “Wine felt like the best industry to shake things up,” says Aritz.
Merits and novelty value of the wine being apart, it may not be easy to cross the hurdle of FSSAI (the Indian government body responsible for food and beverage safety) which is infamous for rejecting the wine consignments from Pernod Ricard’s Australian Jacob’s Creek simply because they mentioned Tartaric Acid as a part of the ingredients. This is commonly added chemical and allowed in a majority of the country including India but that had no bearing on the FSSAI decision since it was not mentioned in its manuals. Pernod Ricard had to go to court finally to get the reprieve.
However, the electric-blue colour of the wine has reportedly landed them in controversy at home. ‘Spain has called for the product to be relabelled, on the grounds that wine cannot be blue, only red or white. Spain identifies 17 types of wine and blue is not on the list.’
‘You have to do some un-learning before you drink this wine; novices are the best targets as they are very low on the learning curve. Try to forget everything you know about wine. Try to unlearn the hundreds of protected wine designations of origin, the complex and demanding service standards and everything that the sommelier said at a tasting course to which you were invited. Forget traditions and forget that we are speaking about the liquid which represents the blood of Christ at church’ advises Gïk. Pretty steep pre-conditions to drink a beverage ‘that is more than a wine and yet a wine’, according to the producer-even though it took two years to develop the product in collaboration with University of the Basque Country.
The winemaking process is relatively simple and straightforward. First of all, a mixture is created from five different varieties of red and white Spanish (and perhaps French) grapes. Two organic pigments, anthocyanins from the red grape skin and indigotine-an organic salt commonly used as a reddish-blue food colourant, are used to change the colour into blue. The drink is 99 per cent wine and 1 per cent grape. A process to combine natural and chemical pigments was developed. It claims to have the aroma of a ripe fruit and is slightly acidic with a sweet bubbly burst. There are no added sugars.
Due to innovative working structure and the flexibility allowed by the technological process which improves both the colour and the taste of the grapes, they claim to work with various vineyards in four different parts of Spain: La Rioja, Castilla-La Mancha, Leon and Zaragoza. They avoid the complexity of being governed by any dictatorial Denomination of Origin.
It’s interesting that even though the young producers claim to be rebellious against all wine traditions, they have stuck to the traditional closure cork and not screwcaps even as they advise you to drink it young and chilled, for which screwcaps have been universally accepted as a better alternative.
For the young rule breakers, rebels and simply fun seekers, there is enough information on their website
And even better details at
https://drive.google.com
For an earlier related Article, click Blog: Blue Wine for Men in Blue
Subhash Arora |