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WINE

Forget red, white or rosé: The future of Spanish wine is blue

A Spanish start-up has come up with an ingenious, or some would say ‘blasphemous’, modern twist on traditional vino.

Forget red, white or rosé: The future of Spanish wine is blue
Can blue wine challenge pink? Photo: Gik

Just as alcopops shook up the alcoholic drinks industry in the 1990s, the entrepreneurs behind Gïk, the newest wine in Spain to hit the shelves, are hoping their indigo tipple will be the next big thing in the wine industry.

“A sweet and fresh taste and the vibrant indigo colour are the main characteristics of Gïk,” the company states on its website.

And don’t worry if you are not a connoisseur. “You won’t need to attend a wine appreciation tasting course to enjoy the blue wine, since its taste makes it so easy to appreciate,” say the makers.

The vino is created from Spanish grape varieties and then turned a deep electric blue hue with the addition of  anthyocyacin, a natural pigment extracted from grape skin, and indigo, a natural dye derived from the woad plant.

Those behind the new tipple are six Spaniards in their twenties with no experience of wine-making at all ad don't even try to pretend that colour makes any difference to the taste.

It's all about the image of modernity.

“Drinking Gïk is not just about drinking blue wine,” says the blurb. “You are drinking innovation, you are breaking the rules and creating your own ones. You are reinventing tradtitions.”

The wine launched this month and can be bought over the internet for delivery in Spain at around €10 a bottle. Plans are already in place for its launch on markets in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands within months.

Asked why they came up with it, the creators state: “Gïk is born for fun. To shake things up a little bit and see what happens. To create something new. Something different.

“Why a blue wine? Why not?” 

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FARMING

Cold snap ‘could slash French wine harvest by 30 percent’

A rare cold snap that froze vineyards across much of France this month could see harvest yields drop by around a third this year, France's national agriculture observatory said on Thursday.

Cold snap 'could slash French wine harvest by 30 percent'
A winemaker checks whether there is life in the buds of his vineyard in Le Landreau, near Nantes in western France, on April 12th, following several nights of frost. Photo: Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP

Winemakers were forced to light fires and candles among their vines as nighttime temperatures plunged after weeks of unseasonably warm weather that had spurred early budding.

Scores of vulnerable fruit and vegetable orchards were also hit in what Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie called “probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century.”

IN PICTURES: French vineyards ablaze in bid to ward off frosts

The government has promised more than €1 billion in aid for destroyed grapes and other crops.

Based on reported losses so far, the damage could result in up to 15 million fewer hectolitres of wine, a drop of 28 to 30 percent from the average yields over the past five years, the FranceAgriMer agency said.

That would represent €1.5 to €2 billion of lost revenue for the sector, Ygor Gibelind, head of the agency’s wine division, said by videoconference.

It would also roughly coincide with the tally from France’s FNSEA agriculture union.

Prime Minister Jean Castex vowed during a visit to damaged fields in southern France last Saturday that the emergency aid would be made available in the coming days to help farmers cope with the “exceptional situation.”

READ ALSO: ‘We’ve lost at least 70,000 bottles’ – French winemakers count the cost of late frosts

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