Mega Purple in Napa

Which of the better wineries are using it? Does anybody know?

Likely no wineries that people discuss regularly on this board.

Who would admit to using it in the first place?

It’s up there with “putting syrah in their pinot” and “using oak chips and sawdust” in terms of being the go-to conspiracy accusations leveled against wineries that someone doesn’t like.

The reason that I ask is that I have a friend who owns a small winery in Napa & his winemaker who has been there for yrs has told him that is is WIDELY used but did not name anyone.

As Chris correctly points out, this is one of the bogeymen of wine nerd circles. It’s usually accompanied by something about how that the wine the person likes is pure natural vineyard to the bottle yadda yadda.

“WIDELY” used can mean lots of things. If it’s used in all the large corp wines that sell for cheap from your grocery store by the pallet then that surprises no one. That would include lots of wines that originate from Napa. If they are suggesting that it’s “WIDELY” used by boutique wineries then lets hear some proof. Most of those wineries probably have more to lose than to gain by using something like that. High quality fruit that’s attended to by premium vineyard management and hand picked isn’t gonna need something like that.

Agreed & exactly what I told him. He replied that I would be surprised

This topic has come up a number of times here over the years. As I recall, there are people in the trade who say that it is fairly widely used even among higher-end wines. But, of course, no one will go on the record about which places.

A little Petit Verdot goes a long way in many great cab and bordeaux blends, but that’s not controversial and therefore a very boring accusation.

The only surprise would be if anyone named names.

If, for example, Ridge came out and said they added it to Monte Bello, would it make the wine worse? Would people stop drinking it?

It would taint their reputation.

And they are the rare winery that lists all the ingredients, including H2O when they’ve watered back!

Yes I would stop buying…it would be a breach of trust (unless of course they said…we are using it publicly). Agree with most other comments here----I think the usage is high but no one will admit to it.

Grocery store wine that is $5 -$20 is the prime segment that may use it. My wife who doesn’t have the most refined palate can tell the “altered sweetness” in wines in that price point segment. Its off putting and kind of obvious. Another reason why finding enjoyable widely available $10-$20 wine can be tough.

All you need to do is go out, hire some computer nerd 13 yr old, have him hack into the Mega-Purple company’s data base, which is probably not very secure and would be pretty simple, and then publish the name of their clients.
I’d donate to the GoFundMe campaign to do this. Anybody else with me on this?
Tom

The sweetness is something else. I believe MegaPurple just adds color and tannin.

As others have said, this is a topic that comes up often, but because (a) no winery ever admits to using anything other than what consumers expect and (b) they don’t have to and (c) nearly every winemaker and winery is more concerned about appearances than anything else, we collectively will never know.

Being in the industry for nearly 2 decades, I have seen so many situations ‘portray themselves’ as doing one thing but in fact do something else - whether it’s filtering wines when they say they don’t; having to remove volatile acidity from a wine but never mentioning it; using Velcorin instead of filtering to avoid the ‘stigma’ of filtering; blending a little white wine or, egads, fruit juice to roses to ‘pop’ the fruit; adding some petite sirah or alicante bouche or something else to ‘add color’ to a wine but still saying that it’s 100% of a specific variety; and the list goes on and on.

And to those who say a lot of ‘grocery store’ wines have them, how do you know? The ‘slight sweetness’ could be coming from the same ‘grape concentrates’ that many wineries use to add a touch of RS or sweetness to cut bitterness.

The easiest way to find out is to directly ask a winemaker or winery what they do - but do not expect them to put anything in print . . .

Or acidifying. Nobody ever acidifies, right?

There are lots of ‘things’ that take place that consumers really are not concerned with - but they collectively go up in arms about certain things . . . and the same happens here from time to time.

Cheers

I don’t think winemakers are so embarrassed to admit acidifying if asked.

I’ve had at least one winemaker admit to me at his tasting room to routinely watering.

By contrast, MegaPurple sounds evil.