When Founder Karen Behnke and her husband, Cardiologist turned Vineyard Manager, Howard Luria, M.D. found the Healdsburg property in luscious Sonoma County in Northern California, they knew they had a special property that had unique grapes and organic certification capabilities and had never been sprayed with Glyphosate (roundup). They were incredibly thrilled that this stunningly beautiful new Juice Beauty Farm had a rare grape crop with exceedingly high antioxidant levels, the Sagrantino grape. The Sagrantino vine was originally brought to the Juice Beauty Farm by the original owner who visited the Umbria region of Central Italy to bring back the best starter vines. This rare grape is only grown on a few farms in North America and mostly for wine. Sonoma County, Dry Creek Valley area, where the Juice Beauty farm is located, is the perfect region to grow Sagrantino as the area has long hot days and cool nights.

When we learned the superpowers our Sagrantino grapes held, the journey from super grape, to SuperGrape began for our Clean Beauty Brand!

The Juice Beauty team changed the cover crop for the Sagrantino Vineyard from rye grasses to red clover to add more nutrient value including nitrogen. The crops are then leafed in a special manner to allow more sunlight access to certain parts of the vine. During growing season, the antioxidant levels and brix levels were checked regularly until the two Dr.’s determined it was the perfect time to harvest to achieve the highest antioxidant serum levels. All of this happens from a Solar Powered farm, Clean Beauty, Certified Organic Farm.

The processing is a special "crush" and not a "juice". The crush process preserves the skins and the high phenol level to achieve the highest antioxidant serum levels. Then the grapes go into a fermentation process where the sugar is removed from the grape extract to enhance stability and to enhance the luxurious feel of the grape crush material. This process increases the alcohol and malic acid levels which increases the polyphenols leading to an incredibly high antioxidant serum level. This entire process is conducted using a clean reverse osmosis technology as opposed to a chemical processing. The high antioxidant levels are desired as science has shown that high antioxidants help fight free radicals which attack the skin…resulting in beautiful, younger looking skin tone and texture, so important for our Cruelty-Free Vegan Skincare brand.