Passing fad or beverage of the future: Non-alcoholic wine

DW (English)

Non-alcoholic drinks are growing in popularity across Europe. Can wine jump on the bandwagon? France, with its long wine tradition, may set the trend.

Transcript

00:00I'm in France swirling my fifth glass of wine, but guess what? I'm not drunk at all.

00:05That's right. That's because this is a non-alcoholic wine.

00:10Wine consumption has been in decline over the past few years, even in France.

00:17Yes, the country known for its fine wines is experiencing a surprising shift.

00:22Consumption of traditional wine is tapering off, while non-alcoholic wines are on the rise.

00:28What's behind this trend? How are these wines made?

00:32And do they live up to the French standard of excellence? Let's find out.

00:37Over the past 60 years, France has seen more than a 50% decline in wine consumption,

00:43from 100 litres per capita annually to less than 50.

00:48This trend is projected to continue in the future.

00:51According to a survey from 2023, these are the most preferred non-alcoholic alternatives.

00:57Alcohol-free cocktails, alcohol-free beer, and alcohol-free wine.

01:03We asked some French people their view on non-alcoholic wines.

01:08If you enjoy like non-alcoholic drinks, I think this is a good option.

01:13I mean, for me, it's too far from wine. So, I don't know, but the taste is good.

01:18Well, it's good, but it's just not wine though, you know.

01:21Despite those mixed reactions,

01:23Augustin Laborde has been successfully running a non-alcoholic drink store in Paris since 2022.

01:31Laborde quit alcohol during the COVID pandemic

01:34and wanted different options for himself and others.

01:37Now, his shop offers everything from alcohol-free wine to beers and 4GIN.

01:43In this shop, there is nothing against alcohol.

01:47So, the idea is not to tell the people, okay, stop drinking alcohol.

01:51It's just the idea to give them an offer, an alternative option.

01:56His sales spike up during dry January,

01:59when many give up drinking for the first month of the year.

02:02He's confident though that it's no longer just a trend

02:05and that more and more French people are open to the idea of non-alcoholic drinks.

02:10Some people at the beginning were coming and were kind of making fun and say,

02:14okay, it's never going to work and how can you make de-alcoholized wine or something like this.

02:19But I think very, very fast, maybe because of our communication as well.

02:24So, for us, it's really something that is new, but that will stay for a very long time.

02:28It's not just a fashion that something will come for one year

02:31and then we're going to never hear about it again.

02:34It is still a niche market, so at his store,

02:37It is still a niche market, so at his store,

02:40Laborde arranges frequent non-alcoholic wine tastings with winemakers.

02:45Consumers can taste the wine and give their honest opinion.

02:50The boom in non-alcoholic beverages mirrors the general decline in the wine

02:54and alcohol consumption in France.

02:56The main reasons for this decline are more health-conscious lifestyles,

03:00a shift from wine to beer, and lower consumer purchasing power.

03:07It's prompted several key figures in the market to produce non-alcoholic wines

03:12alongside their regular ones, as they've done here in the Bordeaux region.

03:18One of the owners of Vignoble Ragueneau foresaw that making alcohol-free wines

03:22would open a new market for them.

03:25Her family has been in the wine business for generations.

03:28They hold over 100 hectares of Bordeaux vineyards.

03:32It was a difficult choice for us to make a non-alcoholic wine

03:35because we are traditional here in Bordeaux, making alcohol wines.

03:41And that was a tough decision because we realized a few years ago

03:47that the consumption was changing already.

03:50Young consumers were not drinking alcohol.

03:57Drinking alcohol.

04:00Winemakers say keeping up the quality and standards of French wine

04:04in these non-alcoholic wines poses a great challenge.

04:08They send their regular wines to Germany to de-alcoholize them.

04:12But how does the process work?

04:16We choose a method that's called a cold distillation,

04:18which goal is actually to make the alcohol evaporate from the wine under a lower pressure.

04:26This method is actually quite interesting because you're able to retain a large part

04:31of the flavors of the wine, which is one of the challenges of when you de-alcoholize a wine.

04:36Their non-alcoholic red wine even won a gold medal in a 2023 international competition.

04:41The goal for us was to really keep the same quality in terms of aromas

04:46and to really find the structure.

04:48But of course, when you take out the alcohol, you take out a part of the wine.

04:52Have you ever tried non-alcoholic wine?

04:55No.

04:56What do you think of it?

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