There have always been alternatives to strong drink. The Virgin Mary alternative to the Bloody Mary, a shandy (beer with lemonade) and that 1980s classic, Aqua Libra, a herbal soft drink. Then, at some point in the past decade or two, bottles of reasonable-tasting alcohol-free beer started to appear, with one of the best known European brands being the German brewed Erdinger Alkoholfrei. Launched in 2001, the drink covers all options by positioning itself as not just alcohol free, but an “isotonic thirst-quencher for sports enthusiasts” that contains “essential vitamins B9 and B12”.
More recently, the UK’s wittily named Nanny State, made by BrewDog, has been garnering fans. It’s a non-alcoholic craft beer that tastes much like the real thing. Even spirits are catching on, with global drinks company Diageo buying a stake in Seedlip, a newly launched non-alcoholic spirit. What there has been a distinct lack of, many complain, is a decent alcohol-free wine, with most efforts being described as either insipid, nasty, too sweet, having a strange mouth-feel, or all of those.
Yet social movements such as Dry January suggest there is a market opportunity for anyone who can produce a good-quality product. There are many reasons for this — social pressures and health awareness, for example, but also possibly a backlash against the trend toward 10 to 20 years of rising alcohol levels. For example, a claret, as the British call Bordeaux, used to be around the 11 percent ABV mark. Now such wines are often between 12 percent and 15 percent, thanks mainly to the confluence of warmer weather and influential wine critic Robert Parker’s love of ripe “fruit bomb” wines, which have more sugar and more alcohol. The trend was not limited to wine. In the UK, in the 1920s and after World War II, the expression “one over the eight” was used to indicate drunkenness, meaning it took nine pints of (much weaker) beer to get a man drunk. Guinness, which was a little ahead of its time in 2012, was already aware of the desire for lower alcohol beers when it began trials of Guinness Mid-Strength on tap. It’s now readily available in many pubs throughout Ireland and the UK. The move also meant it could take advantage of the UK Government’s drinks industry carrot, introduced in 2011, which allows a 50 percent reduction in duty paid on beers with an alcohol content of 2.8 percent or less.
Although the opportunity is there, so far it’s been mainly the sparkling wine sector and some enterprising German companies that appear to be taking advantage of the demand in the wine category.
Sparkling virtue
The German Sparkling Wine Association said annual sales of non-alcoholic sparkling wine have reached about 10m bottles, or a three percent share of the German sparkling wine market, Mintel reports. And, in November 2015, the German trade magazine, Lebensmittelzeitung, was reporting double-digit growth of alcohol-free sparkling wine during the first eight months of that year. The impressive growth comes in the midst of a sluggish performance by Germany’s sparkling wine market, with sales volumes declining since 2012.
In still wine’s defence, it should be acknowledged anything fizzy will likely make the leap to low or non-alcoholic versions with greater ease, thanks in part to ability of bubbles and low temperatures — so often associated with fizz — to mask any taste variations caused by alcohol removal. Global drinks analyst for research firm Mintel Jonny Forsyth agrees that fizz and cold might help to cover for missing alcohol, but says there are a few other factors involved in the popularity of fizz over flat. “It makes the taste a bit more interesting, yes, and younger people have been trained by drinking fizzy soft drinks,” he acknowledges. “But there’s also the fact that producers want to make these drinks aspirational and fun. A bit more of a treat, rather than a poor second option.”
Forsyth also agrees that much of the current demand for low and non-alcoholic beverages is driven by what is referred to as the “wellness trend”, with people wanting to feel better, at the gym, work and in life generally. What’s also helping is that alcohol removal techniques have vastly improved. “Early outliers were not very nice,” he confirms. “They put a lot of people off and were very crudely made by boiling out the alcohol, along with a lot of the flavour. The Germans have really pioneered new methods where, for example, they stop the fermentation before it gets to the alcoholic stage, so the taste is much better now.”
Asked about the future of the non-alcoholic wine category, Forsyth was optimistic short-term, but less so long-term. “In 2018 I see lots of push on non-alcoholic wine, so there will be growth, but probably more percentage wise [from a low base], especially via supermarket brands like Tesco’s Private Label.” He wonders, however, how much potential non-alcoholic wine has. “Sparkling probably has more potential, but the non-alcoholic wine category as a whole might be a bit limited.” Longer-term success, he believes, comes down to “whether it fills a gaping need; non-alcoholic beer is still very refreshing. And they can make health claims.” On that note, he suggests wine makers wanting to make headway in the category should develop the health benefits aspect, beyond the mere absence of alcohol. “People really see red wine as healthy, so if you can carry that through it would be an option.”
In line with Forsyth’s short-term outlook, current figures certainly look robust. In the UK for example, website betterRetailing.com reports that low-alcohol wine sales in 2017 rose by 8.5 percent, to £36.3m ($51.1m), compared with £33.3m in 2016. Notable winners include the low-alcohol B by Black Tower, whose sales jumped by 18.5 percent, while the German-made Eisberg alcohol-free wine — most of which is sold the UK — was up 77 percent, with sales reaching £7m. The trend is also there in other parts of Europe. A 2017 study by Mintel, which asked respondents aged 18-plus (who had drunk wine in the past three months) would they like more lower-alcohol wine options, showed 29 percent in France saying yes. In Germany, 34 percent said yes, in Italy 34 percent, Spain 38 percent and Poland 33 percent.
Who is making it
On the producer side, as Forsyth says, while Germany is ahead of the pack, Spain is also doing well. One of its biggest producers, Bodegas Torres, makes an alcohol-free range called Natureo; the dry white seems to get the best reviews. Intriguingly, another Spanish winery, Grupo Élivo, has even turned Forsyth’s health benefits suggestion into reality. Or, as the blurb for its Cardio Zero puts it: “[the wine] contains a high concentration of polyphenols and its habitual consumption is capable of reducing platelet aggregation and increasing vasodilation in the arteries, which reduces the risks of cardiovascular illnesses.”
In France, non-alcoholic wines exist but the category has been, as Franck Crouzet, spokesman for major wine producer Castel, says, underdeveloped. One of the best known is Bonne Nouvelle, made by Vinadeis, while France’s other major producer, JP Chenet, offers a range of low-alcohol wines. Again, these appear to be mainly available in the UK. Spotting an opportunity and following the results of a Castel-commissioned study completed in 2015, the company launched two alcohol-free wines last summer called Grain d’Envie Syrah and Grain d’Envie Merlot via the Castel subsidiary company, Société des Vins de France (SVF). Sales of the two wines, from their launch in April 2017 to year end, reached a healthy 400,000 bottles, from a standing start.
Castel’s outlook for the sector is more upbeat than Forsyth’s. “What we have seen since 2014 is a growing demand for non-alcoholic wines which is related to general wellness around food and life. We have been watching this area since 2014,” says Crouzet. In numbers terms, the Castel study estimates there are a potential 20m alcohol-free wine consumers in France.
Asked what the sales outlook is for 2018, Crouzet says it was hard to tell. “Last year, in our best month, we sold 100,000 bottles. And in our lowest month, we sold 10,000 bottles, so it’s quite variable. But we hope to at least sell another 400,000 bottles.” He adds that the study showed both a lack of awareness and a readiness to try alcohol-free wines, with 35 percent of those asked being ignorant of them — compared with only three percent for non-alcoholic beer — while 44 percent said they would be interested in trying one and 34 percent saying they would be ready to buy.
Another benefit for Castel, less obvious to those outside France, is that it allowed the company to release adverts showing happy people drinking. To show anyone enjoying alcohol has been impossible since the country’s Evin Law (Loi Evin) was passed in 1991.
In terms of best technical process, Crouzet says they avoid any form of distillation, using nano-filtration instead. “We start by making the best wine we can — and our work showed that monoceépage [using only one grape variety] is best for this. Then we filter out the alcohol” while retaining “the best possible tastes and aromas”. He says the cost to develop the process was very little. “We already had nano-filtration methods for some of our wines, for markets like Japan, which have zero tolerance for sediment.”
In another production twist, an interview (by email) with a spokesman for Eisberg wines, revealed that although the company is using distillation, it is a much less aggressive sort; the presence of an alcohol-sucking vacuum means the temperature at which the alcohol evaporates is lowered, leaving more of the original aromatics and flavours intact.
Creator Ben Branson, the developer of Seedlip, made it clear that he is equally obsessive (and secretive) about his alcohol management process. His goal is that the end-product is not a poor cousin but an equally interesting alternative to traditional alcoholic drinks. “We use alcohol as a means of capturing and carrying the flavours we need,” he says. “Then we get rid of it by very gentle heating.” Branson agrees that much of the driver behind the new demand for alcohol-free drinks was “wellness”, but for he is focused more on the trend towards people wanting good-quality food and drink. Seedlip, he says, is about “the irrelevance of the alcohol content. People want great drinks.”
Seedlip and tonic for breakfast, then? It’s certainly in the realm of possibility. Or an alcohol-free wine spritzer? Dry January 2019 could be a lot more interesting.
