Nope, Mega-Purple is exactly the thing that gives some spoofy wines that distinctive, slightly marmaladey sweetness. For example Yellow Tail Shiraz is often quoted to be a textbook example of a wine back-sweetened with MP.
Normally MP is used only in minuscule amounts to deepen the color (to my understanding it doesn’t contribute at all to the tannic structure), but for example a small but not insignificant 1,5%-vol addition of MP to a simple red wine that is fermented to full dryness ends up lush, fruity and almost opaque in appearance with 10 g/l residual sugar, which can boost those light fruit flavors quite noticeably.
This really hit something on the head for me. I kept noticing a “gymnasium floor” like smell on ‘grocery store’ wines more and more over the years, which this blog post traces to Mega-Purple.
I think there might be some wineries that many would consider “high end” that would have no qualms with most any spoof you can name. They are probably many of the wineries we would collectively sneer at here.
The other things like adding acid and watering back have been readily told to me without prompting by any number of makers. Again, talking about boutique sorts of producers we talk about regularly on this board. I think in terms of the acid it’s simply a reality except for certain locales and even then needed on occasion. I think watering back is also something that is done sometimes but avoided if possible.
As Larry points out, there are lots of tools available. Which are acceptable and which are not is often a matter of individuals. Everyone probably has there own exacting lines of what’s in and what’s out if you listed the dozens of things we could talk about. Some of the tools are simply realities of getting a decent wine in the bottle.
So one must judge what’s in the bottle and how the bottle was made? Seems like a lot of work. It sounds like there’s some spectrum and to most people, Mega Purple is by itself on the evil end. What about harming the environment while making it, paying workers less than a living wage, etc? Are those also on the spectrum?
I was on a tour of a producer in Napa about ten years ago, and I was very surprised to see a couple boxes of a grape concentrate. I don’t recall the name of it, but I pointed it out to my wife who was equally surprised. This is a pretty well known producer who produces what I think would be considered an iconic bottling. I don’t know if, or how it was used, so I won’t out them.
The setting and tour were great, and we still have few bottles of their Cab in the cellar. I do wonder what is in them though!
Agree; to a trained palate accustomed to dry reds, that amount of RS comes across as conspicuously sweet. However, technically that’s just semi-dry, not notably sweet.
Having worked in my past life in the business, including several years on wine store floor, I was surprised how many customers really don’t seem to notice at all how sweet the wines are. Only red wines with very overt RS (20-25 g/l) are so sweet that people start to notice, but unless you tell them that technically this wine with 10 g/l RS is not dry, they’d never notice.
And having tasted hundreds of those wines during my time ITB, some wines can carry their sugar surprisingly well. Sure, 10 g/l is so high that one is bound to notice the sweetness, but if a wine is made well, you’d be excused for thinking a red wine at 6-8 g/l was actually dry. However, those kinds of wines almost invariably are from very warm/hot regions (South Italy, Australia, South Africa, Spain, Languedoc, South America) so the RS can sort of mix well with the ripe and jammy fruit flavors, sort of boosting the fruit instead of showing up as obvious sweetness.
Instead a light and fresh German Spätburgunder with 8 g/l residual sugar is just vile stuff.
(1) Lots of producers making premium Napa cabs are using Mega Purple, but never one time in history has any former employee or worker from any one of them given a firsthand confirmation of it, and nobody who ever worked at Mega Purple (or whatever the company that makes it) has ever once leaked a single name?
(2) The wineries of any interest to us here don’t use it, and have no difficulty getting color and fruit flavors just by ripening grapes, using new oak, and normal things like that?
Mega Purple sounds like a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist for expensive Napa red wines – getting a wine to have a deep vibrant purple color. Where in Napa is it difficult to do that? You think Caymus is pale and bricking until they add this stuff?
RS in red wine sticks out for me at essentially anything above 2 g/l. At 2 or less it is more a richness/fruit boost as you say. 30 years of rigorous tasting has made it clear to me. Of course I am much more forgiving with white wines.
Part of the problem is that the name reminds of a Purple Dinosaur. If they re-branded as Evaporated Free-run Terroir Juice, everybody would be including it on their Tech sheets.
That’s definitely true, but you have to remember that you’re in a minority here when it comes to wine drinkers. For a normal taster it’s nigh impossible to taste a difference of 3 g/l of sugar in a solution and, after all, most red wines actually finish at 1-2,5 g/l residual sugar. Having 2 g/l RS stick out is a feat even for a very trained palate.
10 g/l might be notably sweet to you (as it is for me), but most people don’t notice a thing.
Some yrs ago, I tasted (straight) Mega-Purple w/ Molly at the winery. Left a purple stain on my tongue that lasted over a day.
It had, pure, a very distinct sweetish taste. But at the concentrations used in the red wines, would not have added
much to the RS in the wine.
Tom
Isn’t Mega Purple a trademarked name? And cannot the same result be obtained from grapes by the winery? If those are true, I would suspect no one in Napa uses the trademarked product, but many may be accomplishing the same ends in other ways.
I have a dream that my fighting varietals will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their robe but by the content of their alcohol (by volume)
Mega Purple IS grape concentrate. Increases color, RS and perceived lush mouthfeel. No winery is going to admit they use it, but when you make 300,000 cases of dry red wine from grapes allover California, a little Mega Purple will smooth out the rough edges in average at best fruit.
Cheaters gonna cheat. If people can gain an advantage in the market and ‘improve’ their product, they will. I know too much in this business. I know a certain natural winemaker that’s a fraud and a liar. Blending or ‘fixing’ wines goes on daily. I can’t imagine a medium bodied Cabernet not being improved with 2-3% of a deep Petite Syrah. MP it’s just another tool. I’ll bet that customer list would be interesting to see.
“The Napa Valley is infested with Mega Purple. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names of premium Napa Valley wineries who add Mega Purple to their wines and sell them to the public.”
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