Apple juice with wild blueberry

Kohl Apple Juice Cuvée with Wild Blueberry, night-blue and velvety

Twenty percent juice of night-blue wild blueberries gives the mountain apple juice from Ritten its depth and color: The Kohl Apple Juice Cuvée with wild blueberry sits velvety, full-bodied, and in a nearly opaque purple-violet in the glass – awarded best fruit juice in Italy in 2020.

Apple juice with wild blueberry is the darkest cuvée by Thomas Kohl and simultaneously his most successful: at the 2020 "Mostbarkeiten" awards, it took the national victory for Italy. A velvety, full-bodied mountain apple juice, married with 20 percent juice of night-blue wild blueberries – a cuvée through which barely any light penetrates.

The highly aromatic wild blueberries combine in the finest way with the sweetness of the apple. What emerges is a purple-violet of almost inky depth – and a flavor in which both fruits remain recognizable. There is ripe berry on the nose, followed on the palate by a velvety, full-bodied draw with that subtle tartness that distinguishes the wild blueberry from the cultivated one. Here, the apple juice lends lightness and freshness to the blueberry, while the berry gives it depth and color. Both gain.

With game poultry, grilled dishes, and quark dumplings

The apple juice with wild blueberry accompanies dark meat, game poultry, grilled dishes, and aged mountain cheese – it stands up to hearty foods like almost no other juice in the range.

It likes things salty and savory, but also sweet. With quark dumplings or waffles with hot blueberries, berry meets berry, and the aromas intensify. And when the roast is served in autumn, this is the glass for those who want to stay alcohol-free but still want something with character in their glass.

Best fruit juice in Italy 2020

At the Alpen-Adria tasting of the "Mostbarkeiten" in Carinthia, Thomas Kohl's mountain apple juice with blueberries was named national winner for Italy in 2020 – in the fruit juice category, against the entire Italian competition.

It is already the family's second national victory: one year earlier, the single-variety Pinova mountain apple juice had won the same title. Two years in a row the best fruit juice in an entire country, once single-variety, once as a cuvée. The same producer is on the winner's list both times, which can be checked in the official list: Thomas Kohl, 39054 Unterinn am Ritten. Hats off.

Twenty percent berry and the art of refining

Where a hint suffices for delicate floral and herbal infusions, here quantity is needed: 20 percent wild blueberry juice stands up to the mountain apple. The wild blueberry is smaller than its cultivated sister, but more concentrated in aroma and deeper in color – it asserts itself in the glass.

Refining here means finding the right balance for each partner so that both sides can unfold. For the blossom, that's a thimbleful; for this berry, it's a fifth of the bottle. The mountain apple grows high above Bozen around the Troidner Hof, where cool nights preserve that freshness that the dark berry can put to such good use.

Maximum ripeness at harvest, gentle pasteurization as the only preservation, vegan label from the European Vegetarian Union: this applies to every juice from the house of Kohl.

A stemmed glass is enough to show the depth

A stemmed glass and 8 to 10 degrees: that is all the wild blueberry needs to show its depth. Once opened, the bottle belongs in the refrigerator and is good for about 6 days; unopened, it keeps for a year. The apple juice with blackcurrant is tarter, and in the Ruby Red package, the dark varieties come into your home together.