By Gwynedd Stuart |
The best grape juice is tart, refreshing, and sweet without being a total sugar bomb. We tried everything from concord to white, grape juice in gigantic plastic bottles and little dainty glass ones, to find the best grape juice you can buy.
Know what I like about grape juice? It’s a bev for people who like to live on the edge. Some people get a charge from shoplifting or having sex in public. Other people drink nice, tall glasses of grape juice in rooms with light-colored carpet—same basic idea.
For this taste test, we braved purple T-shirt stains to try more than a dozen brands of grape juice to find the best grape juice for people with a sense of adventure (or hardwood floors). Without further ado, these are the seven best grape juices you can buy.
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- R.W. Knudsen Organic Concord Grape
There’s a lot of big, bold grape flavor in this little glass bottle of organic grape juice. It’s tart and tannic without drying your mouth out, a problem common to grape juice. Like, why drink juice if it’s just going to make you more thirsty? Insane. Sporked editor-in-chief Justine Sterling described this as “grown-up tasting,” and that feels right. Grape juice isn’t just for sippy cups. This one’s good enough for a wine glass if you’re feeling fancy.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Santa Cruz Organic Concord Grape
I don’t think you can always tell the difference between organic and non-organic fruit juices, but all the best grape juice we tasted happened to be organic. If you want the best tasting grape juice, go organic! This Santa Cruz grape juice—which comes in a bottle that’s almost identical to R.W. Knudsen—is super smooth and highly drinkable. Like the Knudsen, it’s tart without drying your mouth out. I would guzzle this right out of the bottle, but it feels fancy enough to drink with dinner too.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Trader Joe’s Organic Concord Grape Juice
Good grape juice shouldn’t be all sweetness—it should have dimension. If you like something with plenty of mouth-smacking tartness, this organic concord grape juice from Trader Joe’s is a good option. Sporked staff writer Danny Palumbo liked how this one sort of lingered on his tongue after he took a sip, and Justine liked its “extracted quality.” I get what she means. It’s like you can taste grape skins in the juice. This grape juice is complex and good.
Credit: Merc
- 365 Organic Concord Grape
I tried a lot of these concord grape juices alongside Welch’s (see below) to get a feel for how their flavors compared to the flavor of a grape juice many of us are most familiar with. This grape juice from Whole Foods, for instance, was nice and sweet like Welch’s, but the sweetness was toned down just enough to make it highly drinkable. Serve this very chilled and it’s just so refreshing. It has a lighter body too, which makes it feel like it’s actually quenching your thirst rather than just giving you a sugar high.
Credit: Merc / Amazon
- Great Value Grape
This Great Value grape juice comes in an enormous bottle and it tastes better than Welch’s. The best part is that it’s a generic brand, so it’s cheap to boot. We’re pretty consistently impressed with Great Value products, and this is another good’un. It’s a little more nuanced that Welch’s and seemed even fruitier and juicier. And, like I said, big-ass bottle!
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Welch’s Concord
Welch’s is the big name in grape juice. While it isn’t the best grape juice we tried, it was still good enough to secure a spot on the list. It has a nice, rich grape flavor, but it’s also super tannic and sort of saps your mouth of moisture. There are better grape juices out there, but we get why Welch’s is a classic.
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Signature Select White Grape Juice
After tasting several popular white grape juices, I came to the conclusion that white grape juice just does not taste as good as concord grape juice. White grapes are great for eating out of the bag, but less great for juicing. But I get it. Maybe you have kids and don’t want to spend your life cleaning purple stains out of things. Well, you don’t mind the much more subdued flavor, this big ol’ bottle from Signature Select is the best white grape juice you can buy—much better than Welch’s, in my opinion.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
Best of the Best
Rating:
10/10
Sporks
Best Drinkable
Rating:
9.5/10
Sporks
Best Tart
Rating:
9/10
Sporks
Best Thirst Quencher
Best Budget
Rating:
8.5/10
Sporks
Best Classic
Rating:
8/10
Sporks
Best White Grape
Rating:
7.5/10
Sporks
Other products we tried: Welch’s 100% White Grape Juice, Great Value White Grape, Kedem Grape Juice, Simple Truth Concord Grape, Kroger 100% Grape Juice from Concentrate, O Organics Concord Grape
Share your favorite grape juice with us using #SporkedTasteTest for a chance to be featured on our social pages!
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About the Author
Gwynedd Stuart
Gwynedd Stuart, Sporked’s managing editor, is an L.A.-based writer and editor who spends way, way too much time at the grocery store. She’s never met an Old El Paso taco or mozzarella stick she didn’t like.
