(TDB) - As the blue wine trend gathers pace, with new blue wine Vindigo going on sale in France this month, French experts are finding the phenomenon hard to swallow.

As reported by The Telegraph, Véronique Cheynier, director of research at the National Institute of Agricultural Research, cast doubt on Vindigo founder René Le Bail’s assertion that the wine gets its sea blue colour from a natural pigment found in red grape skins called anthocyanin.

Le Bail claims the wine, made with a Chardonnay base, turns blue after being passed through a pulp of red grape skin.

“I don’t see how anthocyanin derived from red grape pulp can make this wine blue,” Dr Cheynier told journal Sciences et Avenir.

“Even if anthocyanin-derived pigments that are blue in colour in an acidic medium have been successfully isolated in the lab, these pigments are only present in tiny quantities in grape skin pulp,” she added.