by Andrew Chalk
Flavored water seems to be everywhere. Now O.Vine has come out with wine flavored water. It is non-alcoholic and available in red or white, still or sparkling. I just tried a media sample and they do indeed taste of wine, in a very generic sense. There is nothing so precise as vintage dating or wine 'story' on the label. They are made from the skins and seeds of wine grapes so the red has a nuance (a hint of) red fruit (strawberry seems to be most dominant) and the white tastes most prominently of the gewürztraminer and sauvignon blanc used in its blend.
Chardonnay, says O.Vine, is the other grape used in the white, while the red is cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, and syrah, although I could not recognize the specific grapes used in that blend.
If you want the still variant of either one but can only find the sparkling one, just leave it in the glass for an hour, after which time the effervescence has dissipated and you can’t detect the difference.
Also, screw the cap of unfinished bottles back on tightly. I put one bottle on its side in a backpack. Two hours later three quarters of it had leaked out. I am not limp-wristed about screwing caps back on bottles and suspect that these simply had a poor fit.
O.Vine Wine Essence Water is available for an SRP of $4.99 in a 12.2 oz bottle (although cans would be a more practical container -- one of my samples smashed in shipping). Buy it at the O.Vine website, Amazon, Macys.com, and in stores at Neiman Marcus’s flagship store in NYC and at 120 CostPlus stores nationwide. More outlets are coming, says O.Vine.
Sample