News article taken from The Drinks Business
A chocolate infused wine called Chocolate Shop has surprised its creators with surging demand from a wide range of consumers in the US and UK.
“We thought the market would be female and young, but we’ve found that it has much broader appeal,” said Andrew Browne, founder of the product, citing demand from men and women, as well as older and experienced wine drinkers.
The wine uses Bordeaux-blend of grapes from California, mixed with sugar and natural chocolate.
“We called it the chocolate lover’s wine,” explained Browne, although in the UK, where the product was introduced in November, it must also be classed as an “aromatised wine-based drink”.
In 2011, as many 1.2 million bottles were sold almost entirely in the US retail market.
For the UK market, the base wine is Tempranillo from Spain, while Shiraz is used in Australia, where, like the UK, the Chocolate Shop was launched in November last year.
“Initially, the feeling from the gatekeepers was scepticism, but the consumer embraced it from day one,” added Browne.
Click here for the full article.
My Thoughts…
Pssshhh! What a joke! Who buys this rubbish….!?!?!
That’s what you were expecting me to say right?
Wrong!
I’m a firm believer that every wine has it’s place, and it’s so very easy to rip apart wines like this without first understanding their role in the market, let alone without even tasting them.
For a lot of people (most likely Millenials) this could serve as a good entry-point into wine, in the same way as what we’re currently seeing with Moscato. For me, as long as people are drinking wine (in any form) I’m happy. From there, it’s up-to the rest of us who’ve been “doing this for a while” to hold their hand and guide them the rest of the way!
I very much doubt the creators of the Chocolate Shop intend for it to be your “every day” wine, but as the occasional small glass after dinner? Sure!!! Why not?!?
Chris
I was approached to investigate producing a chocolate ‘wine’ and, as usual, proceeded to de-mystify the product. Firstly, loopholes in alcohol laws allow this to be called wine (in the US it falls under “Flavored Table Wine” ). When, in fact, it is not wine at all. The product has a TA of less than 0.5 g/L with a pH in the 6.8 – 7.0 range. The alcohol is provided by way of brandy spirit not wine and most utilize 20 -24% sugar (questionable if this is legal in most countries) with highly processed dairy products with the upper legal limits for emulsifiers. Some do not even use real chocolate.
I agree there is a place for a drink like this but please, call it what it really is, a lower alcohol liqueur NOT a wine.
Kris Chislett
Hey Chris, thanks for the professional insight.
I’ve never taken the time to actually review a wine like this before, but now I think I have to! The only chocolate-infused beverage I’ve come across before was Chocovine, and I can’t say I was a huge fan. However, a good chef friend of mine actually put together a recipe for a chocolate cake using Chocovine as one of the main ingredients. I plan on posting the recipe here soon.
So far as this wine goes, I’ll probably need to get my hands on a bottle and dig deeper for information. I looked all over their website, and couldn’t see any mention of them adding liquor.
Richard
Whats the difference between Irish Whiskey and Bailey’s Irish Cream? What is wrong with using a wine base to create new and popular beverages? Is Kahlua anathema to a coffee drinker?