Gik ‘blue wine’ arrives in UK
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Gik, producer of a radiant 'blue wine', has brought its invention to the UK, telling consumers to 'forget everything you know about wine'.
The producers of Gïk, a bright ‘blue wine‘, describe themselves as ‘revolutionising the world of wine with a blasphemous drink’.
They claimed to have sold 70,000 bottles within a year in Spain and have now made ‘blue wine’ available to UK consumers online.
It is a move that risks derision in parts of the wine world, and producer company Gïk Live said it was a ‘love it, or hate it’ kind of product.
Red and white grapes spanning several different varieties have been sourced from around Spain, including from Castilla la Mancha and Rioja, to create a ‘sweet and blue drink’ at 11.5 percent abv, according to Gïk Live.
Photo credit: Gïk
Gïk Live said that a team spent two years working with Spanish universities and food researchers to develop Gïk Blue.
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Its online shop was this week selling three bottles of Gïk Blue for £33, and nine bottles for £84.
‘Try to forget everything you know about wine,’ says the Gïk team in its marketing.
The team added, ‘Try to unlearn the hundreds of protected wine denomination of origin, the complex and demanding service standards and everything that sommelier said in at [sic] a tasting course to which you were invited.’
How it is made
According to Gïk, there are four key steps to making its blue wine:
- A base is created from a mixture of red and white grapes
- We add a pigment from the skin of the red grapes – [anthocyanin]
- We add another organic pigment: Indigotine [a plant-based food dye]
- We add non-caloric sweeteners
Online data already collected by Gïk suggests its early consumers are a 50-50 split between men and women, and mostly aged between 25 and 34.
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Chris Mercer is a Bristol-based freelance editor and journalist who spent nearly four years as digital editor of Decanter.com, having previously been Decanter’s news editor across online and print.
He has written about, and reported on, the wine and food sectors for more than 10 years for both consumer and trade media.
Chris first became interested in the wine world while living in Languedoc-Roussillon after completing a journalism Masters in the UK. These days, his love of wine commonly tests his budgeting skills.
Beyond wine, Chris also has an MSc in food policy and has a particular interest in sustainability issues. He has also been a food judge at the UK’s Great Taste Awards.
