A spotlight on the growing popularity of non-alcoholic wine •france 24 English.

My guest today is widely credited with creating the world's first premium alcohol-free wine brand. It's called Naughty and since 2019 it's been helping build an entirely new category from scratch, perhaps even creating the future of the wine industry in the process. Amanda Thompson, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. So let's start with your own career. How does one go from being a broadcaster at the BBC to becoming a wine entrepreneur, who by the way also won the Entrepreneur of the Year award last year at the Drinks Business Award. What was the career path? Yeah, it's a bit of a surprise, isn't it? Actually the bridge was champagne. Champagne was my buzz and that led me to train originally under the world's best sommelier, the late Gérard Basset, a wonderful Frenchman who lived in England and had a whole history of bringing on women in wine. I moved to Paris, studied at Cordon Bleu and launched a champagne. Now how did I get to non-alcoholic wine? There was nothing for me to drink when I wasn't drinking. I was a wine obsessive and I was drinking so much sparkling water and the famous brands were not sponsoring me and that led me to dive into the data and I realized there were millions of wine lovers around the world who literally were being lost to water when we weren't drinking alcohol. So that was the light bulb moment. Exactly, but the problem is, I mean I've tasted non-alcoholic wines in my life, it's difficult to get that taste exactly right. What's the process of creating a non-alcoholic wine that feels like a wine? It's a really good question and I think that's the fear everybody has and had I realized how big the challenge was, would I have taken it on? Who knows? That's the classic entrepreneur story. Yeah, it's desperately hard to make good non-alcoholic wine. What I say that we've done with Naughty is we haven't mimicked. We're making a really good wine to start with, then we're de-alcoholizing it and the challenge, as you allude, is how do you retain those vinous wine-like qualities and it's really not about cooking the wine where you're going to disappear, you know, the flavors are going to just disappear. So yeah, it's really, really hard. I think that when I question people, I say your favorite wines are not exactly the same as each other and I take them into that headspace and I think the reason we've been so successful is I applied exactly the same principles to creating Naughty as I did when I worked with a Grand Cru champagne maker on my champagne brand to make something really elegant, really delicious, organic where possible, low sugar and just really tasting great and giving you just that similar feeling. So despite all of that, what was it like, what was the biggest challenge when you were trying to establish Naughty, particularly with people who run restaurants and great chefs, that kind of thing? Wasn't everyone basically saying it's just a glorified soft drink? Yeah, essentially. I suppose in the drinks business there's that saying liquid on lips and I think taste really is where you change people's perceptions. So I would get isn't that the most ridiculous idea in the world? Sometimes people would be even less polite than that and then you get that transformational moment with the liquid and so, you know, I find with a lot of really fixed people who are negative to start with, that sip, that oh, not bad, then you know that it's really good, you're in. And it's interesting, it seems that the non-alcoholic beer market has found its audience. Do you feel the non-alcoholic wine market has found its audience? We're really at quite an early stage. I mean, if you bear in mind, I was the first person in the world to make good non-alcoholic wine appealing to wine drinkers. I mean, the history is very new there. So I think the data is there in terms of the future facing piece. Consumers have got to really catch up, but everybody who tries Naughty and any of the great winemakers who are trying to achieve something like we are with quality, I think can really have their perception changed. So we'll get there. Talk us a bit more about the consumers, what they're hoping to get out of this non-alcoholic wine. I mean, do they just want something to go with the dinner? Are they looking for something just to replace that buzzy feeling, but just with the taste? It's really all of the above. I mean, I think what most of our consumers love about Naughty is that they can blend it into their traditional wine drinking and make a wellness choice without realizing. And I believe we're actually taking market away from the water business, and we're actually building in the wine business. So it's not some sort of adjunct. So actually, it's that replacing the ritual. So you know, often, if you've heard the term zebra stripe drinking, this idea that you might have one glass of wine, then switch to Naughty, then perhaps have some water, then come back to another, just really the thing that Gen Z, the young people, I think are doing so brilliantly is just letting go of preconceptions and just enjoying Naughty as a wonderful drink that is like wine, but doesn't have the alcohol. So anybody who wants to make a wellness choice without realizing it, we're the brand for them. And when we talk about wellness, for many people, unfortunately, we talk about calories, calorie counting. How does a Naughty wine compare to an alcoholic wine when it comes from a calorie perspective? Well, we're really low in sugar, and often people think sugar is the most calorific component. In fact, it's alcohol, which often surprises people. So without the alcohol, I would say, by the time you've chilled your bottle, opened it, poured the glasses, you're probably going to burn more calories, really low in calories, as well as sugar. And just a quick word on cost. You situate about the same as a mid-market wine, would you say? It's an interesting one. I mean, we come in, I think, fairly inexpensive. But I think anyone who expects alcohol to be the expensive component, actually, the opposite is true. Ethanol is very cheap. So I think you have to be prepared to spend an equivalent amount to get a really good non-alcoholic bottle like Naughty. All right. Amanda Thompson, thank you so much for coming on. You're the founder and CEO of Naughty. Thank you for telling us about your non-alcoholic wines. And for once, I don't have to say, in moderation. Go for it. Amanda, thank you so much. Don't forget, if you want to get a closer look at any of the other entreneuse segments we've had for you, you can always check it out on our website, that address, France24.com.