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Blue wine is coming to America! Get ready to pour yourself a glass

After a regulatory delay, the photogenic wine is finally hitting U.S. shelves in September.
/ Source: TODAY

UPDATE: According to Eater, after a regulatory delay, the photogenic wine is finally hitting U.S. shelves in September.

In early 2017, inspectors were anonymously alerted to the fact that Gik, the makers of the neon wine, violated a Spanish regulation that says that blue is not a legally approved wine color. As a result, Gik was fined €3,000 by the Spanish government and could no longer label its product as wine; the labels now read “99% wine and 1% grape must.”

The almost-wine is currently sold under the “Other Alcoholic Beverages” category in Spain, but in the U.S., it will be sold as blue wine. Its initial launch in late September is taking place in Miami, Boston and Texas, but the team hopes to get to New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Washington, California and Nevada shortly thereafter. The average price per bottle will retail between $12 and $14.

Read the original post below:

A new bright cobalt blue wine launched in Spain finally has a U.S. release date: this October. The “vintners” who make this blue beverage make no claim to any wine-making expertise — they’re just trying to do something “fun” and “different.”

“We are not vintners. We are creators,” the six Spanish twentysomething entrepreneurs declare on their website, saying they purposely sought out the most “close-minded industry out there” in an effort to make wine “sweeter and easier to drink.”

Hate to break it to you, kids, but it’s been done. Heard of wine coolers?

But that hasn’t stopped the blue wine from aweing the internet.

As we reported last month, the 11.5% alcohol content wine is made by Spanish company Gik Live and is a blend of red and white wines from Spanish and French vineyards.

New blue wine from Gik will be launching in the U.S.
Gik Live

Now, as we know, red plus white does not equal electric blue. Gik’s vibrant tint purportedly comes from organic pigments found in grape skin (indigo and anthocyanin) and a “non-caloric sweetener” (“because excess of fast carbs leads to overweight”).

Most importantly, how does it taste? We haven’t gotten our hands on a sample yet, but the founders claim they’ve already sold 80,000 bottles after launching earlier this summer.

Gik co-founder Artiz Lopez offered his take on the taste. “For me, it is a wine that is not complex at all. It tastes sweet and fresh and has no heritage,” he told Vice’s Munchies. “Surprisingly, when we did a blind tasting, just one of 15 people said it was a wine. Among the reactions we found some people even saying it was a soft drink!”

The beverage is currently being sold in Spain but will be branching out other European countries throughout the summer and the U.S. in October — just in time for Halloween parties. It will sell for $16 a bottle, $5 more than the European price. But if the idea of waiting that long gives you the blues, Gik is offering a pre-order option.

Or you could always just pour vodka into berry blue Kool-Aid.

This post was originally published on June 20, 2016.