Fontana Cabernet Sauvignon style kit smells like ...

[crabjoe]

Concord grape juice.

Not only does this Fontana Cabernet Sauvignon extract, once hydrated to 6 gallons, smells like Welch's Concord grape, it's the same color purple. It makes me feel like the put Concord grape in the kit and that's why they call it a "Cabernet Sauvignon style" wine kit.

I noticed other brands also have the "Style". What's the reason for this? I'm guessing it's something legal, or why else say it's in that style of wine?

Now, maybe I'm wrong and all red/purple grape juice looks and smells like Concord grape, but I was expecting something different.

 

[berrycrush]

I remember my first Chilean Cab kit smell just like kid grape juice. If you can detect concord then at least you get some varietal flavor.

 

[Johnd]

Cheap kits are rarely a pure varietal juice, probably why they call it Cabernet Sauvignon Style, and has other grape juices in it, and probably some Mega Purple. If you ever get some of the higher end kits, you'll probably notice the difference in the juice, the high end WE kits, the RJS high end kits, the Mosti Mondiale Meglioli's, etc.......

Sometimes, wines will be labeled with the word "Style" because of rules imposed in other countries. For instance, you might see a dessert wine labeled as a "Port Style Wine", because it's not a Port if it doesn't come from the proper region in Portugal. You'll see wines in the US labeled as "Bordeaux Style", again they're not Bordeaux's if they didn't come from there. Same is true for "Amarone Style" vs Amarone