Non-alcoholic and low-alcohol wines were going to be big, but they flopped. What happened?
Pricey, a thin texture, a ‘funky’ flavour – low-alcohol and zero-alcohol wines have not lived up to expectations. Can they be improved?
Camille Glass – co-founder and co-owner of restaurants Brut and Pondi and wine bar Crushed in Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong – had hoped that non-alcoholic and low-alcohol wines would be the next big thing.
She was wrong.
“I was quite excited: I was used to having a glass of wine, if not three, every night, but I didn’t like the way I felt the next day,” she says. In 2022, she brought in zero-proof, organic sparkling chardonnay and rosé produced by Thomson & Scott, a British company that specialises in non-alcoholic drinks.
Also on her shelf is a piquette from US-based wine producer Limited Addition Wines (Ltd.) that boasts flavours like cranberry tea, black pepper and grapefruit.
However, it was not attracting customers. “We put it on the board, on our list, did Instagram stories; the winemaker [for Ltd.] was in town recently and there just hasn’t been an uptake of it. I was sure the low-alcohol drinks were going to create a movement in the industry across the world, but I was wrong.”
