Can't decide between red, white and rose wine? How about a glass of blue wine?
Spanish company Gïk has introduced a new wine color to entice new drinkers, especially the younger non-wine drinkers who might have been discouraged by all the wine snootiness.
The new tipple is a blend of red and white wine but comes in a bright blue hue. The new color suggests it's the trendy drink to be seen sipping. Gïk blue wine has 11.5% alcohol by volume (ABV).
While it's the blue dye that gives the wine its signature hue, the coloring is all natural. The blue dye is made from a naturally occurring pigment found in grape skin, anthocyanin, as well as indigo, which is another all-natural dye extracted from plants.
The blue wine comes with a calorie-free additive that gives it its sweetness. The Gïk tipple is said to taste like a reisling, which is a sweet white wine that is often served chilled.
Gïk blue wine is made from grapes from the León, La Rioja and Castilla-La Mancha regions near Madrid in Spain.
After the launch in Spain, the Gïk team brought the blue wine to several countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Portugal. Each bottle has a price tag of £7.50 ($9.99).
"We do not believe in wine tasting rules and we don't think that anybody should need to study the bible of enology to enjoy a glass of wine," explained Gïk on its company website.
In fact, the Gïk team itself is made up of six young Spanish entrepreneurs without a seemingly snobbish wine tradition, namely Iñigo Alday, Jen Besga, Aritz López, Imanol López, Gorka Maiztegi and Taig Mac Carthy.
But Why Blue?
According to the Gïk team, they are not vintners. Rather, they are creators and they have chosen the wine industry as their battlefield to create a "radically different product." Apart from making the color blue, they have made their wine sweeter, making it easier to drink, especially for the non-wine drinkers.
They found inspiration from a book titled "The Blue Ocean Strategy," which explained the existence of red oceans - the ones full of sharks that have torn the small fish populations to the point that the water turned red. The book also explained that there are blue oceans, wherein the fish populations swim freely without competition.
In psychology, the color blue also represents infinity, movement and innovation. In terms of shaking things up in the wine industry, the new hue is also the one most linked to change and flow.
"Thus the poetic idea of transforming a red ocean into a blue ocean through changing the most traditional red liquid into blue was one which greatly appealed to us," the creators explained.
