Thursday, March 24, 2011

Grapes in France are called Raisins..this is Serious

Grapes or raisins as they call even the juicy ones here in France are not to be trifled with. I mean it. Careers, money, parties and lives are ruined or made by the varieties of this little fruit.
So it should come as no surprise that even plain old grape juice is judged and awarded based on flavor and I'm sure more things like color, bouquet, and who knows what else.The medal looks just like the ones found on award winning wine. Maybe we should compare a silver medal Cotes du Rhone with this juice?!
{can you see the silver medal?}
I buy this particular vintage from my local grocery store. It's just the store brand too, nothing fancy. But it has a silver medal. Nothing less for these kids, I tell ya.
Can you tell me if there are any particularly good New World grape juices? Or is this just a French thing?

7 comments:

  1. Wine geek checking in. This threw me at first during the wine course I took last fall, but I remembered wine (vitis vinifera) and table (vitis 'a bunch of other latin named varietals which were used to graft wine raisins during the Phylloxera disaster) were different grapes - or raisins. Then she taught me the word "cepage" (for the Sauv Blanc, Chard, Cab Sauv, etc.) varietals of grapes. I don't know if any of our grape juices (not of the vitis vinifera/bottled/alcoholic variety) are medal winners however.

    You know what else threw me? The noun "Amateurs" as in most 'amateurs prefer Brut Champagne vice sweeter' ones. I thought - this must be wrong! Wine amateurs normally go for the sticky sweet stuff! It took me a week of Champagne lectures to finally realize Amateurs = lovers of that fine jus de raisins, and NOT an amateur (adj) = someone who's not a "professional" wino?

    Technically, I'm still an Amateur in either translation so am curious what wins this grape juice the silver medal! Looking forward to your tasting notes!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Crikey. I knew there was a reason my kids only drink apple juice. As for me, I prefer the alcoholic grape juice!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is it for real or has someone been having a laff and taken a medal off a bottle of wine and stuck it on the grape juice?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love juice in France! I feel like it's better? Is there any credibility to this?

    ReplyDelete
  5. you guys are so funny! and i love it because i thought the exact same thing at first. but no. there really is a silver medal on the grape juice. no lie. proof: http://www.e-leclerc.com/marquerepere/images/produits/zoom_216/3564700002865.jpg

    you've made my day.
    a x

    ReplyDelete
  6. I prefer white grape juice myself, but I think that would just complicate things!

    ReplyDelete
  7. My super-organic neighbor bottled and sold her grape juice this year. It is so sweet, so intense, it's actually impossible to drink straight. And there's only grape in there! In our home, it's my littlest who gets confused about the raisons behind raisin vs. grape. But he learned the French reasoning first, and finds the English side the confusing one...

    When it comes to things culinary, the French are no sluggards when it comes to marketing. I run across an awful lot of those medailles (whether or, argent or bronze). And the stickers even make things taste better, at least better than a "new and improved" sticker would...Cheers!

    ReplyDelete

It makes my day to read your comments. They're an answer to my floating words in blogland.