People have increased their drinking to cope with the anxiety, boredom, and uncertainty of the pandemic.
A recent study in 11 major OECD nations found that 36% of respondents increased their alcohol intake during lockdown. Alcohol consumption increased the most among women, parents with young children, and people who earn a lot of money.
The OECD offers a number of solutions for this alarming rise in alcohol consumption, such as “limiting alcohol promotion to young audiences,” “intensifying police controls to reduce road accidents caused by alcohol,” and “setting price policies to limit alcohol’s financial accessibility” to help prevent excessive consumption.
There is another solution, however: the promotion and sale of wines with low or zero alcohol content. This strategy has been successful with non-alcoholic drinks, such as whisky gin, and beer, especially among millennials.
No- and low-alcohol beverages (NoLo), although still marginal, currently represent 3 % of the global beverage market, in ten major economies. By 2020, global sales will reach $4,520 million.
The legitimacy of a claim
Dealcoholised wine is produced by removing alcohol from the wine through reverse osmosis, evaporation or preventing fermentation.
It is relatively easy to do these things, but it’s the challenge of eliminating the alcohol from the wine without changing its taste. Although there have been great advances in this area, dealcoholised wines still do not taste as good as traditional wines and are not a true alternative.
Could we call a wine that is partially or completely de-alcoholised if it tastes the same as the real thing? In our research for 2019, we found that changing the alcohol content of a product affects its categorization. Our study found that only a few people classified low-alcohol wines as wine.
We will be identifying the limits to acceptability in a future study. Two thirds of consumers believe alcohol is an important attribute in a product and that this new innovation doesn’t belong to “wine”.
Currently, consumers don’t identify alcoholised products as wine. CC-BY, Pxhere
Legitimacy is also affected by regulations. In France, the law specifies, “wine is a beverage that results from the complete or partially alcoholic fermentation (whether or not crushed) of fresh grapes or grape must”, and has an alcohol content greater than 8.5%.
If you remove the alcohol from the product, it will no longer be legal to call it wine.
The Problem of Categorisation
The wine industry is not the first to have problems with categorisation.
The European Union’s regulations define “milk” as “the product of the milking by one or more cows”. In 2017, the European Court of Justice enforced the regulation by prohibiting use of the word “milk” or “cheese in reference to plant-based products. This was done to respond to claims made by dairy producers that these labels would confuse customers.
In 2020, however, the European Parliament approved the use of meat-related terms to describe plant-based foods. The European Union can use the words “veggie sausages”, “soy burgers” and “veggie hamburgers”.
In France the exception is that it states clearly that food products with animal proteins cannot be designated by words.
Ongoing debate in Brussels
Many wine producers have started producing dealcoholised beverages. They are now demanding that they be allowed to call these products “wine”. In Brussels, the European Commission is debating the reformation of the Common Agricultural Policy and the harmonisation rules of the community, including Article 180 regarding wines.
Brussels is currently making decisions on the future of wine. Pixabay, CC BY
If the negotiations are successful, we may soon be able to apply the term “wine” to alcoholised products in a highly controlled and regulated manner.
By applying a regulation to these products that links them to the world wine, perhaps in the form a subcategory will help consumers better understand these beverages’ inherent benefits.
Serious communication efforts by wine producers and retailers regarding these products will also be required to ensure the acceptance of low- or no alcohol wine.
The psychological barriers to dealcoholised wines will be reduced as professionals focus more on the issue of legitimacy. The alcohol content in a wine could become a deciding factor for consumers and overcome their current issues with dealcoholised wines being labelled as “wine”.
The challenge is to improve the taste of non-alcoholic wine. In the near future it is possible that advances in dealcoholisation will reduce the differences between traditional wines and NoLo wine, just as they have already done with spirits and beer. It will be interesting to see if wine producers are able to reduce the gap in taste between traditional and NoLo wines.
