The six young innovators behind Gïk are bucking tradition with a brighter, bolder twist on everyone’s favorite fermented beverage. The winemakers have sourced a blend of red and white grapes from around Spain’s Basque region and mixed them with indigo dye and anthocyanin, a pigment in the grapes’ skin, to create a revolutionary vino in a startling shade of sapphire.
Gïk’s vineyards are mostly based in La Rioja, Zaragoza, León and Castilla-La Mancha, but the company says the locations and specific grape varieties aren’t important—what matters are the people behind the product, including both the growers and the vintners. However, the founders prefer to ditch the official industry terminology, referring to its winemakers instead as “creators,” including designers, programmers, artists, and musicians with flexible schedules and unconventional office spaces. The groundbreaking entrepreneurs are all in their twenties, and they have no bona fide expertise in the wine trade, though they did spend two years collaborating with the University of the Basque Country to hone their recipe.
Besides the shock factor, why did they choose the color blue? Gïk offers a number of symbolic explanations, including that fact that the tone “represents movement, innovation and infinity. It’s also a colour frequently associated with flow and change.” The look may be radical, but the taste is widely palatable: it’s supposedly sweeter than an average red or white, though it contains no added sugar. Each bottle has an 11.5% alcohol content and costs around $11, though it’s not yet available in the United States (Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany can place orders online). Here’s hoping it hits American stores soon, as it’s sure to appeal to fellow millennial creators and creative types who are equally eager to shake up the classic cocktail hour.
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