Yes, there is a wine ingredient called Mega Purple
And it's more common than you’d think.
Once you know how to spot it, you’ll taste it everywhere.
And you’ll never look at cheap red wine the same way again. 🧵🍷
Mega Purple is a thick, sweet, inky extract made from a grape called Rubired.
Just a small dose adds deep color, smooth texture, and a candied finish to otherwise forgettable wine.
It’s grape-derived—but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
It started as a way to rescue weak vintages. But now it’s everywhere.
If you’re drinking wine from a box, or paying under $15 a bottle, especially for jammy reds—there’s a good chance Mega Purple is in the mix.
Think of it as a type of pancake style makeup for wine.
You won’t find it on the label. Wine doesn’t have to list ingredients.
But there are signs:
- Over-the-top purple color
- Sticky sweetness
- Flavors like grape jelly, vanilla extract, and artificial chocolate
Mega Purple is often used to mask poor fruit—like overcropped vines, underripe grapes, or wine rushed through fermentation.
And if it’s in there, it probably came with friends:
Velcorin, powdered tannins, added sugar, oak flavoring, enzymes, coloring agents.
At that point, it’s more of a science experiment than wine.
Wine made with better grapes and fewer tricks costs more.
That wine tells a story. Real terroir, real flavors, real art.
But more importantly, Low Intervention wine will probably leave you feeling a hell of a lot better the day after drinking it.
What's that worth?
Most people have no idea what’s actually in their wine.
I’ll be posting more about how to find bottles worth drinking and how to see past the veil the industry hides behind.
If this helped you, it'd help me if you liked or reNOSTed the first post or followed along!
Cheers!
Replies (89)
#winestr
Ben Justman🍷
Yes, there is a wine ingredient called Mega Purple
And it's more common than you’d think.
Once you know how to spot it, you’ll taste it everywhere.
And you’ll never look at cheap red wine the same way again. 🧵🍷
Mega Purple is a thick, sweet, inky extract made from a grape called Rubired.
Just a small dose adds deep color, smooth texture, and a candied finish to otherwise forgettable wine.
It’s grape-derived—but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
It started as a way to rescue weak vintages. But now it’s everywhere.
If you’re drinking wine from a box, or paying under $15 a bottle, especially for jammy reds—there’s a good chance Mega Purple is in the mix.
Think of it as a type of pancake style makeup for wine.
You won’t find it on the label. Wine doesn’t have to list ingredients.
But there are signs:
- Over-the-top purple color
- Sticky sweetness
- Flavors like grape jelly, vanilla extract, and artificial chocolate
Mega Purple is often used to mask poor fruit—like overcropped vines, underripe grapes, or wine rushed through fermentation.
And if it’s in there, it probably came with friends:
Velcorin, powdered tannins, added sugar, oak flavoring, enzymes, coloring agents.
At that point, it’s more of a science experiment than wine.
Wine made with better grapes and fewer tricks costs more.
That wine tells a story. Real terroir, real flavors, real art.
But more importantly, Low Intervention wine will probably leave you feeling a hell of a lot better the day after drinking it.
What's that worth?
Most people have no idea what’s actually in their wine.
I’ll be posting more about how to find bottles worth drinking and how to see past the veil the industry hides behind.
If this helped you, it'd help me if you liked or reNOSTed the first post or followed along!
Cheers!
🤮🤮🤮
all wine is not created equal
🍷
I guess I’ll be buying wine off Nostr next.
Great write up. Hey, I’d be interested to get your take on the documentary “Sour Grapes,” about one of the greatest wine fraudsters in the US. I think he was using some of the same alchemy you describe, then mixing wines together, fraudulently labeling and bottling them, and selling them at auction for ridiculous prices. He had all the wine magazines fooled too! It’s a fascinating documentary for wine enthusiasts.
I learnt somethin today
Ben Justman🍷
Yes, there is a wine ingredient called Mega Purple
And it's more common than you’d think.
Once you know how to spot it, you’ll taste it everywhere.
And you’ll never look at cheap red wine the same way again. 🧵🍷
Mega Purple is a thick, sweet, inky extract made from a grape called Rubired.
Just a small dose adds deep color, smooth texture, and a candied finish to otherwise forgettable wine.
It’s grape-derived—but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
It started as a way to rescue weak vintages. But now it’s everywhere.
If you’re drinking wine from a box, or paying under $15 a bottle, especially for jammy reds—there’s a good chance Mega Purple is in the mix.
Think of it as a type of pancake style makeup for wine.
You won’t find it on the label. Wine doesn’t have to list ingredients.
But there are signs:
- Over-the-top purple color
- Sticky sweetness
- Flavors like grape jelly, vanilla extract, and artificial chocolate
Mega Purple is often used to mask poor fruit—like overcropped vines, underripe grapes, or wine rushed through fermentation.
And if it’s in there, it probably came with friends:
Velcorin, powdered tannins, added sugar, oak flavoring, enzymes, coloring agents.
At that point, it’s more of a science experiment than wine.
Wine made with better grapes and fewer tricks costs more.
That wine tells a story. Real terroir, real flavors, real art.
But more importantly, Low Intervention wine will probably leave you feeling a hell of a lot better the day after drinking it.
What's that worth?
Most people have no idea what’s actually in their wine.
I’ll be posting more about how to find bottles worth drinking and how to see past the veil the industry hides behind.
If this helped you, it'd help me if you liked or reNOSTed the first post or followed along!
Cheers!
love this content! couldnt zap ya for some reason but will try again later
Know the difference 👇
Ben Justman🍷
Yes, there is a wine ingredient called Mega Purple
And it's more common than you’d think.
Once you know how to spot it, you’ll taste it everywhere.
And you’ll never look at cheap red wine the same way again. 🧵🍷
Mega Purple is a thick, sweet, inky extract made from a grape called Rubired.
Just a small dose adds deep color, smooth texture, and a candied finish to otherwise forgettable wine.
It’s grape-derived—but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
It started as a way to rescue weak vintages. But now it’s everywhere.
If you’re drinking wine from a box, or paying under $15 a bottle, especially for jammy reds—there’s a good chance Mega Purple is in the mix.
Think of it as a type of pancake style makeup for wine.
You won’t find it on the label. Wine doesn’t have to list ingredients.
But there are signs:
- Over-the-top purple color
- Sticky sweetness
- Flavors like grape jelly, vanilla extract, and artificial chocolate
Mega Purple is often used to mask poor fruit—like overcropped vines, underripe grapes, or wine rushed through fermentation.
And if it’s in there, it probably came with friends:
Velcorin, powdered tannins, added sugar, oak flavoring, enzymes, coloring agents.
At that point, it’s more of a science experiment than wine.
Wine made with better grapes and fewer tricks costs more.
That wine tells a story. Real terroir, real flavors, real art.
But more importantly, Low Intervention wine will probably leave you feeling a hell of a lot better the day after drinking it.
What's that worth?
Most people have no idea what’s actually in their wine.
I’ll be posting more about how to find bottles worth drinking and how to see past the veil the industry hides behind.
If this helped you, it'd help me if you liked or reNOSTed the first post or followed along!
Cheers!
well it's there for those who qant cheap ass wine!! that's kinda the purpose isn't it? good info, thanks!
onlyzapped!
The high fructose corn syrup of wine.
Good info, but It’s not nice of you trying to steal the joy from drinking my cheap chillable red box wine😂
Its over bro...but not for my wine!
Do your thing! No shame.
Honestly, like were trying to decouple bitcoin from crypto, I'm trying to decouple shitty wine from low intervention wine from a health perspective.
The difference in how you feel afterwards is pretty insane.
Hmm . Learned something new today.
If you buy cheap wine or crypto, I'll always fight for your ability to choose.
That said, like us bitcoiners are trying to separate Bitcoin from Crypto, I'm trying to separate commodity wine from low intervention wine from a health perspective.
Many people associate wine drunk with a bad hangover, but if you drink low intervention wine, that association gets destroyed.
Wine is the Bitcoin of Alcohol
View quoted note →pretty solid analogy
pretty solid analogy
pretty solid analogy
CAN YOU ZAP ME HARDERRR(daddy)
Others zapped me for this, so it might be an issue on your end.
I appreciate that you appreciate it and appreciate the sentiment off appreciation through your attempted zap!
Always something with zaps. It worked a bit later 🤙
incredible film
My takeaway is that it shined a great white spotlight over all the shadiness of the wine industry.
Bitcoin is low intervention wine and the love of wine for the art
Crypto is commodity wine and the chasing of high dollar wine for status
I'm looking to put Shopstr to the test more. I've got product listed there, DM me before you buy so I can help with any possible hangups
crazy the difference once you start digging a little bit
Same with bitcoin and crypto ironically
🤣
I got ur back 🫡
This is so interesting. And informative. And honestly not too surprising. All the pretend food and beverages out there keep getting worse and worse.
Thanks for the information
quality shows. cheaper (price) is for a reason. usually a compromise/shortcut that affects the end result. in this case adding nasty purple junk for colour and making headache wine with a nasty taste.
same thing with newer ways of raising animals for meat real fast but ending up with shittier quality sickly looking tasteless meat.
quality takes care, attention and time.
🍷🤙
Of course. Will be sharing more along these lines. This one is just the top of the iceberg and honestly not that bad in comparison to others
Absolutely. Commodity wine does seem to be getting squeezed a bit rn
Thanks! Never heard of this before.
thanks for reading!
Mega Purple is just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to wine additives
Have to admit I've probably been fooled by it. Would need some training to recognize it though.
I have too. And there's no shame in that
I wonder why it has so 1984 Orwellian name?
The name is incredible isn't it?
Amazing
Lake Canandaigua is the shit.
Really good to know! Cheers 🍷
Is that in Canada?
Cheers to you sir
Thanks for reading
🫡🍇
🍷
This sounds so american
its true, but probably not exclusive to the USA
You’re doing great work and I’m proud of you! I have a very unrefined pallet and used to be fine with cheap wine when I thought it just had cheaper grapes and less aging etc. Finding out there are fiat additives and Frankenstein foods in it with no requirement to list ingredients is just another eye opening layer of the onion.
Will do!
So it's literally purple drank.
The wine industry is as dirty and full of eicks as the food industry or crypto.
In inch of knowledge can open up a new view that's a mile wide
I haven't gone out to find it to taste the megapurple on it's own, but I'm pretty sure I can already identify it (I've noticed similar flavor profiles as you describe in cheap wines before).
I've been fighting and avoiding mega purple since 2009. Nasty stuff. Wine labeling needs to get better. I love the Czech wines with their g/l of sugar and acid. The only ingredient allowed in France is grapes... otherwise it's not wine, but a beverage.
🫡
Thanks for reading!
All New World wine geography suffers the Mega Purple curse.
That plus other things allow them to go for a desired flavor profile.
I feel like so many wines I've drank, I've had before even if they were totally new to me
It's from California. Everything there was mega in the early 2000s.
I'm really not in favor of more regulation, but also recognize that it's the problem
I’m working my way through Nostr and adding bitcoin businesses to my directory:
https://btcaccepted.org/?business=peony-lane-wineI'm not a drinker/fan of wine, of any type, but this was interesting insider information.
I still think the best thing you can do with a thin, mediocre wine is to add alcohol and sugar, then throw it on oak for half a dozen years.
I love sipping port in the evening by a fire.
Hell yeah
Appreciate you for reading!
Nothing is for everyone
Not a bad take
It’s a work in progress but has been fun. I started it when I had some local people that accepted bitcoin but couldn’t be listed on BTCMap because they had no address other than their home.
Let me know if you want to update any parts of the description or add any other details.
Sad state of the world everybody worried about Artificial Intelligence but the real danger is Artificial consumables
I'm working on a new show called
@Soak Quest that is building the Bitcoin circular economy and will have many more for you
I just don't have an specific on chain payment rails. Only lightning
Always has been 🔫
Tell people how fining is done, and what they used to use in the old country.
Exactly you get what you pay for. Ben have you ever watched anything on SOMM TV? You would be a great orange pill documentary on there. Along with bringing awareness to your AVA.
It's in the list!
Never heard of it. Probs would be great, but I tend to feel the need to stay away from traditional wine media
For sure. I can share my account details if you’re ever interested.
NY. One of the finger lakes. There are some vintners in that region. Hazlitt is up there.
Got it updated
Agree. It's about leading the way with best practices and transparent labeling. If it becomes the expected norm, no regulation is needed.
Huge
Yum! Sound delicious 🤢
It takes customer demand and education for a bottom up approach. I think people are starting to see with this type of thing
🤮
so which retail wines DONt have it orh which should we avoid? Josh is my fav retail brand.
💯
Id guess that Josh is pretty high in additives.
If you want a blanket statement, stick to French or Italian and if you want to do keep drinking California, but move to low additive wine, do some digging
It wasn't until I started drinking local wines that I realized just how prevalent additives have been.
Wild the difference.
Smaller, les distributed wineries are gonna have less additives even if they don't consider themselves low intervention
Exactly.
Cool! This will be fun to follow.
