I was looking for something sweet, fruity, and alcoholic, and the colorful frosty bottle of Arbor Mist White Zinfandel caught my eye so I decide to pick it up.

Flavor

I’m no wine expert so I cannot tell you if this is a true ‘Zinfandel’ or not, but judging from the cheap price I doubt it is on any wine connoisseur’s top ten list.

This wine’s flavor is what I call very… moderate. It’s moderately sweet, moderately fruity (both smell and taste), and tastes moderately like wine (this is probably because there is only 6% alcohol).

It goes down smoothly and it’s quite easy to drink down a whole bottle in a matter of minutes. However if you had other alcohol products available its hard to say if you would choose this one.

Nutrition/Ingredients

There are 3 servings per bottle, with each containing 15 grams of sugars and 170 calories.

In my rush to pick up something at the grocery store I was fooled by the “Exotic Fruits” labeling and led to believe there is actual fruit inside. That is not the case – there is exactly 0% fruit juice present. The fruit-like flavor comes from various natural sources, which is nice, but not likely to be any real “exotic fruits”.

The sweetener is HFCS which is something I try to avoid, but frankly I haven’t yet seen any evidence that proves for certain this is any better or worse than other sweeteners (including non-calorie sweeteners and natural fruit juices). Still, I consider this a minor weak point and plan on looking for a sweet wine that uses real fruit juices in it. If you know of one, please let me know.

There is a trio of preservatives I’ve seen used in other wines before, obvious not ideal but probably a necessary evil for most wines.

Ingredients: white zinfandel, water, high fructose corn syrup, natural flavors, carbon dioxide, citric acid, potassium sorbate, potassium benzoate, and potassium metabisulfite (to preserve freshness).

Price/Availability

I purchased this 750ml bottle for $14.99 at Winn Dixie supermarket.

Ratings:   Flavor:   7.0 Nutrition/Ingredients: 6.0    Price:  8.0   Overall: 7.0

Summary

This is an OK sweet, fruit-flavored wine if you are buying on a budget, but there is nothing great about it worth going out of your way to pick it up.

References

http://www.arbormist.com/exotic_fruits_white_zinfandel.asp