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First Blush is a juice and tea company making drinks from classic wine grapes. Good juice grapes (Concord) makes bad wine - do great wine grapes make good juice? And what's an antioxidant?
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Mike Supple: You're watching Screw It on SuppleWine. I'm your host, Mike Supple.

First Blush is a new product that recently caught my eye. They make juices and teas from well known wine grape varieties.

Traditional grape juice is made from Concord grapes. Concord grapes can be used to make wine and is probably best known for making thousands of gallons every year of Manischewitz, the #1 kosher brand in the United States. In general wine made from Concord grapes has some bitter and wild flavors to it that many wine critics describe as "foxy." And by this they don't mean that it's sexy, but more that it tastes unpleasantly like a wild animal. This flavor can be hidden by adding a ton of sugar to the wine, but then you end up with something heavy and sweet that will give you a wicked hangover.

So if great juice grapes don't really make good wine, can great wine grapes make good juice?

The First Blush flavor I'm trying right now is Chardonnay - see that is says 100% pure Chardonnay juice on the label. I poured it into a wine glass to give it the best tasting environment like a wine, so I can smell and taste it better. You can see from the color that it's a lot darker than a standard Chardonnay. It's also a lot cloudier than a typical wine.

Let's see how it smells. It definitely smells like grapes, but it does have something else going on in there. It's got an apricot aroma with a touch of peach. Not quite as complex as your standard Chardonnay wine, but it doesn't just smell like grapes.

[Tastes it.] That actually has a really fresh yellow apple - Golden Delicious - flavor with a nice touch of peach. More complex than what I would consider standard grape juice, but less complex than wine. It is also very sweet - not overly sweet - but very sweet like grape juice. It definitely tastes nothing like wine, but it is a tasty juice.

And for comparison's sake, I also poured a glass of Concord grape juice to make sure there were real differences. This definitely smells a lot more like what I think of as grape juice. Very fresh with purpley grapes and a little bit of a plum aroma. It just smells fresh and grapey - there's no other way to describe it. And it tastes like grapes. It definitely does have about the same sugar content - they are both thick, sweet juices - but very drastically different flavors.

On the top of the First Blush bottle you see the words "The Antioxidant Super Juice." Antioxidants have been the topic of many health articles in regard to wine over the past several years. While not fully understood yet, these antioxidants that are found in wine are linked to many health benefits, including cancer prevention, improved lung function and cardiovascular health. While traditionally thought to be best in red wines - since red wine gets its color from grape skin contact and the skin contains more antioxidants - other studies have shown that the pulp in white grapes is high in other antioxidants that may be just as beneficial, if not more so, for your health.

What doesn't get as much press is the fact that it has nothing to do with the wine. These possible health benefits come from the grapes themselves, and grape juice is full of antioxidants. So if you're looking to boost your health while giving your liver a break, grape juice may be the way to go. And thanks to First Blush, taking a night off from wine doesn't have to mean leaving your favorite grape behind. Their juice comes in 4 of the most popular wine varietals: Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah.

At $3 - $4 per bottle, they aren't cheap. One of these is about half the size of a bottle of wine, so you're looking at a $6 - $8 equivalent wine. If what you want is a new way to enjoy your favorite wine grape while cutting down on the alcohol, then First Blush is the way to go. However, if you're just looking for some antioxidant action, turn back to the old, reliable Concord grape. It's high in antioxidants too, and only around $4 for a jug.