Mega Purple: The natural wine ingredient that no one wants to talk about

It’s concentrated grape juice that may be in your $15 supermarket red. But don’t tell anyone I told you so

I’ve written about corruption, underhanded dealings, and various other shenanigans during my career. But I’ve never been stonewalled quite the way I was when I wrote a freelance piece for Pix.wine about the history of MegaPurple.

MegaPurple is concentrated grape juice, similar to the frozen stuff at the supermarket (though made with a hybrid grape called rubired). It shows up in red wine all the time – mostly in blends, sweet and otherwise, costing $15 or less, and it’s so potent that only a drop is needed.

But it may also, maybe, possibly be in red wines costing two and three times that much – if someone was willing to talk about that.

In fact, I contacted some 15 people for the story, and only four talked to me. Almost everyone said, yes, it’s a great idea for a story, but I can’t help you.

So why all the mystery? Because – and pun fully intended – Mega Purple and its competitors (one of which is called UltraVin 8000, and another of which is organic) are the deep dark secrets of the California wine business. They’re used to make inexpensive red wine darker and a touch sweeter, on the theory that most wine drinkers equate quality with darker wine and that most of us prefer a touch of sugar.

And it makes wine critics crazy. Do a Google search, and you’ll see a decade or so of stories taking Mega Purple to task; in this, it’s even more heinous than scores, premiumization, and the neo-Prohibitionists. The consensus is that it’s unnatural, even though it’s made from grape juice and is completely legal under most state and federal regulations.

This is not a defense of Mega Purple; blog readers know me better than that. Rather, it’s to note two ironies: First, that it is natural, and not a whole lot different than adding grapes like alicante bouschet or petite sirah to make red blends darker. Which happens all the time, and especially in pinot noir costing $25 or more. Or so I’m told – but not, of course, on the record.

Second, that ingredient labels would spotlight Mega Purple and the rest, and we’d all know that it was in our wine. But how many people in wine really want to do that?