NICE pioneers session wine category
The female-led team at London-based wine startup, NICE, will see it launch its first ever, lower ABV Session Wine in January 2024.
The wine will be available exclusively from the NICE website and to the on trade in 75cl bottles (RRP £10).
NICE is recognised for innovating in formats such as can, box, and on tap – attempting to make wine more inclusive and less intimidating, as well as bring a fresh outlook to the industry.
One of the biggest challenges consumers face with wine is not enjoying how strong the alcohol content is; an average 250ml glass of wine has 37% higher alcohol content than the average pint of lager, for example (source: KAM data report 2023).
Whether consumers are trying to avoid the immediate effects associated with the higher level of alcohol, or the after effects the next morning, NICE Session Wine has been created to offer consumers the choice to moderate more easily.
Beer drinkers are familiar with session lagers and IPAs, now, thanks to Future Wine Company NICE, wine is now Sessionable too.
The 3.4% ABV NICE Session Sauvignon Blanc and NICE Session Merlot means that if drinkers fancy three glasses of wine, they’ll have imbibed the strength of just one glass of wine.
Made with Sauvignon Blanc grapes, NICE’s White Session Wine is dry, crisp, fresh, with a little wink of tropical citrus. Made with Merlot grapes NICE’s Red Session Wine is juicy, fruity, and smooth, with a little flash of spice.
Co-founder Lucy Busk, notes that moderation of alcohol “isn’t new and it isn’t niche”.
“Three out of four UK adults are proactively moderating their alcohol intake; the same as the number of people who consume alcohol at least once per week,” Busk says. “It’s also not just a Gen Z phenomenon, we can see from the data that it’s happening across all age groups. That’s why we created Session wine, to offer consumers more choice”
However, despite this growth, driven mainly by zero alcohol options, moderation in wine has been few and far between, getting a bad reputation as tasting like juice, and largely only providing for non alcoholic occasions, rather than as a low ABV option.
The market is now starting to see retailers such as Sainsbury’s introduce a Mid-Zone in the wine aisle (7-10% abv) but NICE says there isn’t a ‘Sessionable’ option available at a lower ABV like there has been in RTDs and beer. This means there’s a £150m category opportunity just by catching up with the adjacent category market shares.
