First Blush: Cabernet Juice

I have tried First Blush juice before (somewhere in the archives is a review of the Chardonnay juice) and I liked it. But sadly, they are only sold at one store in my area -- and wouldn't you know, it is not a store I go to very often. And unless First Blush is on sale, I'd rather get a bottle of "Two Buck Chuck" from Trader Joe's that's actually wine, instead of spending $2.99 for an 11.5-ounce bottle of grape juice.

But every now and then, they do go on sale...and I snapped a couple up.



First Blush juices are made from the juice of wine varietal grapes. Hence the juice contains some of the same qualities that the wine of the same name would have -- but with no alcohol. They also are caffeine and gluten free. They have no added sugar, no artificial colors or flavors. And there's a ton of antioxidants as well.

But how does it taste?

Well, the juice smells more like regular old grape juice than it does a glass of Cabernet wine. The color is dead-on identical to the wine -- but it forms that little foam around the rim of the glass that juice does and wine doesn't.

It doesn't taste like your kid's grape juice. It's very smooth and sweet. But it's a natural sweetness, rather than that slap-you-in-the-face HFCS sweet that many commercial grape juices have.



The best way I can describe the flavor is to say that it tastes like raisin juice. Yes, I fully realize that raisins are grape mummies -- but still, raisins taste different than grapes do. Just imagine that someone somehow juiced some raisins and made a drink out of it. I know that doesn't sound too appealing, but it actually does taste good. It's like a super concentrated grape flavor. It's very smooth and there's no acid burn. The aftertaste is kinda like black cherry and molasses.

Honestly, if I didn't know that this juice was made from wine grapes, I wouldn't have put the two together. But it is seriously good juice in any case.


PURCHASED FROM:

Vons Supermarket