Sweet's Candy: Cabernet Dark Chocolate Wine Gels

I love gel/jelly candy. There is something about the texture that always seems to rock my world...sort of like an edible Hugh Jackman, rising glistening from pristine blue water. (Sorry, Gigi just really likes the image.) I also really like Cabernet, but for various uninteresting health reasons I don't get to drink as much of it as I might like to. The idea of getting the flavor of the wine without the aftereffects really appealed to me.

These candies are long sticks of Cabernet wine flavored gels, enrobed in dark chocolate. The domed box opens from its side, and reveals the sticks ensconced on a protective bed inside a decorative plastic bag.



Each stick is thin and about 2.5 inches long. The sticks are a dark, rich brown and smell sort of like weak wine and chocolate. The candy is in fact made with wine. However, there is no actual alcohol in the sticks.

When you bit into the candy, it is very soft and a little sticky. It's incredibly smooth. The chocolate layer is thin and quickly flakes away when bitten into.



Honestly, I am glad the chocolate is so thin -- because while it's not bad, it's also not great. It's waxy and kind of grainy. It seems too sweet for a dark chocolate. It actually reminded me more of the type of chocolate coating you'd find on ice cream bars rather than a good dark chocolate. (There also a milk chocolate version as well. I had planned on picking that one up too, but by the time I got this box the milk chocolate boxes were gone.)



Really, this candy is all about the gel center. The gel is a shade of stained glass red -- and set against the darkness of the chocolate, it does make for a pretty candy. And woohoo! The gel in fact does taste like Cabernet!

OK, you wine snobs out there probably won't be impressed. No, it's not the most high end cab out there, but it's not the worst either. And we shouldn't expect it to the finest. After all, it's just candy, not a cherished, dust covered vintage from a French wine cave. It's sweet, but there is no mistaking it was meant to taste like deep red wine.

In my never ending quest to be as thorough as possible I discovered that there is however, a very real, very interesting aftertaste. Once the chocolate flavor wanes and the wine flavors back down the jelly that's left (this is assuming you are simply letting the candy melt in your mouth rather then chewing) tastes remarkably like sugared beets! Granted this flavor come up long after most people would have just swallowed and been done with it, so it is not something you will probably notice just casually eating the sticks. I don't know if the taste is caused by the wearing off of the wine flavoring or if perhaps the candy is made with Beet sugar or maybe it's just a subtle tribute to Dwight Shrute. In any event if you wait long enough it's there.

So-so chocolate aside I really liked these gels. It's a nice to have a gel option that isn't merely fruit flavored. The texture was addicting and it made me think about Dwight Shrute so how good that be anything other then good?

Cybele recently reviewed the Dark Chocolate Port wine version. Be sure to read her review HERE


PURCHASED FROM:
Albertsons Supermarket

PRICE:
$2.99

CALORIES:
160 calories per 5 sticks

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Made on equipment shared with nuts. Kosher, gluten free, contains sulfites.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
sweetcandy.com

Ciao Bella Blackberry Cabernet Sorbet

I know that wine sorbets are not exactly new, but with the lone exception of the Cabernet sorbet from Bennett's Ice Cream at the Los Angeles Farmers Market, I have not had the chance to try any other versions.

Mind you, I've seen the pint containers of Ciao Bella Blackberry Cabernet Sorbet in supermarkets for at least a year, and I've kept coming up with reasons not to get it. But I figured, hey -- it's Christmas Eve, and if that isn't as good an excuse to indulge as any, there'll never be a better one. (Well, OK, maybe New Year. But I didn't feel like waiting another week.)



The sorbet is a deep purple. It really does look like frozen Cabernet. It also smells like Cabernet. Yes, I like it when things that are flavored with wine and/or liqueur actually look and taste like the real thing.



So, does it taste like the real thing? YES IT DOES!

The first thing you taste is an explosion of berries. It's very sweet -- kinda like raspberries, cherries, and blueberries had an orgy, followed by the birth of a really purple baby. (I'll otherwise not speculate on what a creature with three biological parents might be like. Suffice to say I live in Southern California, which is entirely weird enough already.)

Just when you start thinking the berries are a little too sweet, the tart, slightly puckering grape emerges.

You know the way good red wine tastes after you've held it in your mouth for a few seconds so that it's warmed slightly from your own body heat, and then you swallow it? That's exactly the flavor that kicks in. If you don't know what that is like, I'm not sure I can do it justice but here goes... It's like slightly sour grapes, there's a little cherry and some currants. It's sort of like a frozen wine cooler -- but I mean that in the best way possible.

Y'know what? Just get some of this!



PURCHASED FROM:
Vons Supermarket