Winery News
Who says you can’t make wine from Cactus? Just ask the Coppola winery, up in Napa. From Wine Spectator:
(Francis Ford) Coppola has… supplied the obtuse travel diary of one 26-year-old “Nick,” who has been sent to Europe in search of wine-based adventure and discovery, with decidedly mixed results. Here’s Nick on Luxembourg: “…um, anyone know what language they speak in Luxembourg?”
Wait, that wasn’t the cactus part of the news. Let me see, here it is, further down in the article, below the picture of the cactus. It turns out that Coppola has nothing to do with the cactus wine at all. I must have just wanted to name drop on the blog to increase hits.
Anhui Cactus winery is currently marketing a range of drinks made from a combination of Languedoc vins de pays and cactus juice. The red and white wine drinks, sold under the label “Cactus,” contain 5 percent of the prickly plant’s juice—not a lot, but enough to knock your socks off. “It’s similar to a cactus-flavored Campari,” said company spokesperson Eric Lathan. Chinese drinkers, who prize cactus juice for its nutritive and energy-giving qualities, purchased more than a million bottles of the brand last year. Lathan added, “You can pick up the [cactus] aromas straight away and the attack on the palate is really surprising.”
