There’s nothing more dispiriting than the three words “low-alcohol wine”, with the possible exception of “low-fat cheese”. They usually denote a sickly-sweet concoction with little resemblance to anything you would normally drink.
Yet sales are booming, according to Tesco and Marks & Spencer, which are both releasing new products to meet the demand. (Mind you, they’ve been saying that for the past 10 years – usually around this time of year, as dry January heaves into view.)
One group that has apparently taken to low-alcohol beverages is millennials. This tallies with a recent report from the Office of National Statistics in which over a quarter of 16- to 24-year-olds claimed not to drink.
But is low-alcohol wine the best option for those who can’t or don’t want to booze?
You won’t be entirely surprised to hear that, as the Guardian’s drinks correspondent, I’m not convinced. For a start, low-alcohol wine is a misnomer. Wine by definition involves a percentage of alcohol. Remove it and you’re essentially left with grape juice. You’ve subtracted the ingredient that makes wine so delicious and redolent of a specific place. Alcohol is a carrier of flavour and body – the qualities that make wine so compatible with food. If you’re used to drinking wine, you’re unlikely to be satisfied. To me it’s like an eating an egg without the yolk.
Which is why I’m not desperate to taste Tesco’s new low-alcohol sparkling sauvignon blanc and sparkling rosé, or the 0.5% alcohol Australian wines that M&S is promising for January.
And there’s more to wine than just the taste. There’s the pleasure – though few of us are willing to admit to it these days – of getting mildly tipsy. Of course, alcohol in excess is undesirable, even dangerous, just as eating too much can lead to obesity. But the government doesn’t seem to credit us – particularly the over-50s, which it has in its sights – with an iota of common sense or self control. It’s perfectly possible to drink one glass, just as it’s possible to have one slice of cake. Not every adult who drinks staggers away from the dinner table.
Now politicians are seriously proposing we keep our parents and grandparents away from the demon drink. Lady Hayter, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on alcohol harm, has suggested we avoid giving elderly relatives bottles of booze for Christmas. Presumably we should not give them boxes of chocolates either, in case they eat them all at once and make themselves sick.
For various reasons sometimes people, including me, choose not to drink. I take at least a couple of days off each week, but I wouldn’t dream of drinking low-alcohol wines on those occasions. Do, by all means, if they appeal to you – but I can assure you that there are many more palatable options. Including that traditional British favourite, tea.