For Immediate Release: Tuesday 10 July 2018
Lower-alcohol wine opportunities still niche with consumers turning to other low-alcohol beverages, according to Wine Intelligence’s Global SOLA Wine Report: Sustainable, Organic and Lower-alcohol Wine Opportunities 2018
According to Wine Intelligence’s recent Global SOLA Wine Report: Sustainable, Organic and Lower-alcohol Wine Opportunities 2018, lower-alcohol wines are currently struggling for attention as consumers are turning to other low and no-alcohol drink choices over wine.
Although the lower-alcohol wine category may deliver some future potential, driven by consumers increasingly opting to moderate their alcohol consumption, drinkers state that they are switching to alternatives beyond wine including mocktails, adult soft drinks and beer for low or no-alcohol occasions, rather than wine.
The key concern for lower-alcohol wine is the perceived poor quality and taste of these wines. This statement is supported by a New Zealand wine journalist commenting that “traditionally, there has been a big difference in the quality of lower-alcohol wines, with lower-alcohol wines being very green, harder and more acidic with more sugar to hide these traits”.
For the report, Wine Intelligence has developed an ‘Opportunity Index’, which crosses 11 markets and 12 sub-categories to determine where SOLA wines have the greatest chance of success and which of the individual product types within the group might work best. This Opportunity Index considered the relative opportunities by market of wines that are lower in alcohol, non-alcoholic, Fairtrade, organic, sustainably-produced, environmentally-friendly, from a carbon-neutral winery, biodynamic, preservative-free, sulphite-free, orange / skin contact and vegan. It takes into consideration awareness (people who are aware of the types of wine), purchase intent (people who have specifically bought the wine in the past 6 months or intend to buy it) and affinity (people who think the type of wine is right for people like them) in 11 key wine markets.
The report uncovers that the strongest opportunity for lower-alcohol wine is in New Zealand (43.2) and Australia (37.6) ranked first and second respectively. Among the 11 key wine markets analysed, Germany (25.9), Sweden (25.7) and Japan (25.5) scored lowest in the Opportunity Index for lower-alcohol wine. Similarly, non-alcoholic wines see the most potential in Sweden and Nordic countries, with Japan and Portugal at the bottom of the Opportunity Index.
Wine Intelligence CEO Lulie Halstead comments: “The Wine Intelligence SOLA report and index provides definitive, consumer-led insight to enable wine businesses to make informed decisions to support their investment and product development strategies”.
Notes to editors:
Please see a press extract here, which includes the full SOLA Opportunity Index, details on how we created it and key findings of the report.
Report details:
Further details about the report can be found here.
Any questions please contact Courtney Abernathy.
Requests for purchase should be directed to Eleanor Hickey.
