Lindt’s new Nagano Purple celebrates a rare luxury Japanese grape variety

Japan is a country with a myriad of regions, and with that comes a myriad of local specialties and flavors. Swiss chocolatier Lindt is now bringing one of those local specialties to our attention with their latest limited-time release, enticingly called the Nagano Purple Chocolat Drink.

What makes this drink stand out isn’t just its beautiful shade of purple, it’s the star ingredient inside that gives it its purple hues — the rare luxury black grape Nagano Purple.

Produced in Nagano Prefecture, an area famed for grape production, Nagano Purple is a hybrid between the Kyoho and Rizamarto varieties. This gives it the same round appearance as a Kyoho grape, but it has an intense wine-like taste. It’s also seedless and designed to be eaten skin-on, unlike a lot of other Japanese grape varieties.

Given its rarity, a lot of people in Japan don’t know about the Nagano Purple, but Lindt is looking to change that, with this new drink that blends whole Nagano Purple grapes with white chocolate, and tops it all off with a yoghurt espuma topping, to balance out the sweetness.

Nagano Purple has a high sugar content of around 18-21 percent, but it also displays a tartness in its flavor profile, so we were expecting this to be a sweet-yet-tart drinking experience. What we hadn’t expected, though, was for the flavors to be this well-balanced, revealing just how much thought and detail had gone into its creation.

Although dark chocolate is often thought to be the best partner for wine flavors, the white chocolate here was a perfect companion, adding just the right amount of creamy sweetness to the grape component. The grape itself made its presence felt throughout, with distinct fruit flavors filling every mouthful, and as they were used whole, the grape skins created a jelly-like contrast to the otherwise smooth textures.

▼ There was actual jelly in the topping as well, shining and glittering in the light like beautiful jewels.

The white chocolate flakes and yoghurt foam topping continued the dance between tart and sweet right to the very end, providing a refreshing finish to the elegant sweetness that Lindt is well-known for.

Priced at 780 yen, the Nagano Purple Chocolate Drink is a treat worth indulging in, but it’ll only be on the menu at Lindt Chocolat Boutique & Cafe locations in Japan while stocks last until Sept 13.

Photos © SoraNews24

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