Blue curaao, blue vodka, blue gin, now there is blue-pigmented wine. But why? We explore the psychology of weirdly coloured booze
A company is trying to shake up the wine industry by producing bright blue bottles of the boozy beverage. But will it help the taste?
Blueness and alcohol arent strangers, as anyone who has drunk one too many gins and wept into their lap on the night bus will know. But last week, a Spanish company decided to make that link a tad less metaphorical by launching a wine that is the same shade as the WKD Blue alcopop.
The worlds first blue wine, Gk Live, is the brainchild of six young entrepreneurs with no previous experience of the wine trade, who are attempting to shake things up in what they call the most traditional and close-minded industry out there. They take a wine base that mixes red and white grapes, and add two organic pigments, one of which, anthocyanin, is found in grape skin. Then, hey presto: youve got an alcoholic drink that wouldnt look out of place at a student union happy hour.
Gk Lives creators say there is some psychology behind what theyre doing. (And not just such a desire to be anti-establishment that theyve called their tasting notes an anti-tasting sheet.) The reason that theyve opted to colour their beverage a light shade of Harpic Toilet Duck is because: In psychology, blue represents movement, innovation and infinity and is frequently associated with flow and change.
So by drinking a beverage that is a light shade of Toilet Duck, you will presumably be more psychologically open to enjoying new experiences and will find your mind opening up to a world-changing way to drink wine. Unless you ask a psychologist.
People have an expectation of the way drinks will taste based on their colour, says Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at Somerville College, Oxford an expert in the multisensory perception of food who has collaborated with Heston Blumenthal, such as on Blumenthals Sound of the Sea dish. They might expect a blue drink to taste of raspberry or blue curaao or even mouthwash. If you dont get the taste youre expecting, it can be disconcerting.
But what about the element of surprise? After all, when you see a blue drink, youre not thinking: Ooh, I bet thats got a lovely buttery mouthfeel. If it tastes nicer than youd anticipated, surely it could enhance the experience?
If you get something thats a little bit better than you expected, thats a good thing, explains Spence. But if its very different, more often than not your brain goes: Have I been poisoned? Whats gone wrong in my head?
Gk Live isnt the only blue-coloured alcohol to launch recently in the UK. In 2014, The London No 1 launched a range of blue gin. And its part of a growing trend to turn our foodstuffs into the shades youd find in a packet of kids crayons, given the recent popularity of rainbow bagels and cheese toasties, the shade of which also looks as if it was dreamed up by a five-year-old. Given the column inches devoted to what, essentially, seem to be little more than marketing gimmicks, lurid food and drink is something we are likely to see more of.
Actually, its not a new phenomenon, offers Spence. The Italian futurist art movement would serve blue wine to guests at their dinners in the 1930s.
Ah, so its not a fad. Its a traditional and long-established way to render foodstuffs more enjoyable. A spot of culinary wizardry with more than 80 years worth of research into how to tantalise peoples tastebuds.
Well, no: they were doing it to shock people into an altered state of consciousness. It wasnt meant to taste good.
Even if the makers marketing claims may be psychologically flawed, at least theres one advantage. It should be very easy to enjoy this wine until youre blue in the face.
