With Halloween coming up this Monday, I decided to get festive with this week’s drink. I went to the store intending to get a pumpkin beer, but came across a spooky purple wine called BOOberry Breeze.

I expected the name of the wine, or at least the white metallic ghost on the label, to be the scariest part. To my disappointment, the taste of the wine ended up being scarier than the label and the name combined.

To the nose, this wine smells just like watered down grape juice. Considering the wine is supposed to be blueberry flavored, this smell is not what I expected, and made me bit skeptical before I even had a sip. In addition to the strong grape juice aroma, I could barely detect the smell of alcohol.

The ingredients of this wine are water, white wine, sugar and blueberry juice concentrate. It pours reddish purple, far lighter than red wine, and more or less completely transparent. If you picture three parts water and one part red grape juice, that’s about what it smelled and looked like.

The flavor of the wine isn’t too far from the smell or color. The first thing I noticed with my first swig is the ridiculous amount of sugar. It’s extremely sweet. In fact, I don’t even know if I consider it a wine.

At first sip, it immediately reminded me of Manischewitz wine. For those unfamiliar, this drink is a sweet red wine often consumed on Jewish holidays. Picture drinking that that but with more sugar, water and artificial flavors.

The finish of this wine was extremely short. Just like everything else about this wine, it reminded me of grape juice.

With only 4 percent alcohol, I wasn’t expecting a large alcoholic presence in this wine, but I barely even noticed any at all. It tasted far more like a grape mixed drink than wine.

This wine is made by Glenora Wine Cellars in Dundee, NY, about 80 miles southwest of Syracuse. During most months of the year, you can find it under the name Blueberry Breeze as part of Glenora’s fruit series. In October, they slap a ghost on the bottle and call it BOOberry for a spooky Halloween twist.

So do I recommend this wine? Maybe if you’re looking for a fruity grape juice and blueberry drink with some Halloween spirit. But if you’re looking for a good wine, this is definitely not what I recommend.

Published on October 27, 2016 at 12:01 am