Wine experts in France are challenging a Spanish wine maker that claims the color of its blue-flavored wine is natural reports, The Telegraph. The composition of Vindigo, produced by Mediterra Vin, was questioned by Véronique Cheynier, director of research at France's National Institute of Agricultural Research, who responded to the company's claim that its wine starts out as white but turns to blue after being passed through a pulp of red grape skin.
Dr. Cheynier told a scholarly journal that she does not see how anthocyanin derived from red grape pulp can make the wine blue based on the "tiny quantities" present and how the pigments react in acidic mediums. Specifically, the pigments are red in an acidic medium, at low pH, and only turn blue in a basic medium, as a pH higher than seven. The pH value of wine generally falls between three and four.
Dr. Cheynier's doubts were echoed by Jean-Louis Escudier, researcher at the institute, who says a wine with a pH higher than four is microbiologically unstable and oxidizes faster. He says if the producer's explanation were true, red grape skin pulp has been added to white wine, which is illegal under the rules of the inter-governmental International Organization of Vine and Wine. Dr. Cheynier says a definitive answer could only come from an analysis of the wine's composition.
Mediterra Vin stands by its natural, colorant-free claims. However, it will withdraw an "unintended labeling error" of "de Méditerranée", which is a protected geographical indication in France, after the Inter Med Federation of wine producers in southern France wrote the company a letter urging them to remove the words, according to the report. Full Story
Related: Blue Wine Launches in France and Spain; Blue Wine Crosses the Ocean.
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