Source: McGuigan Wines

The wines will roll out at £4.50/750ml

McGuigan Wines is going alcohol-free.

The Aussie wine brand has unveiled McGuigan Zero, a range of five booze-free wines: shiraz, sparkling, rosé, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. They will launch into Morrisons, Budgens and Londis from early November (rsp: £4.50/750ml).

The wines were in development for over two years, said the brand. “[McGuigan] uses the latest spinning cone technology, working at low temperatures to gently remove alcohol after the fermentation process, ensuring the wines maintain their delicate fruit flavours.”

The wines were “created to maintain strong varietal characteristics”, it added, containing no artificial sweeteners or additives”, it added. 

McGuigan was “the only wine company in Australia operating spinning cone technology, which has enabled us to play around with its capabilities in making low and no-alcohol wines”, said its chief winemaker Neil McGuigan.

“The biggest challenge is to make the flavour profile of the finished product as close to a wine at full-strength as possible.”

Rival Australian brand Hardy’s launched its own alcohol-free spin-off earlier this year.

It’s been a solid year for McGuigan: the brand added a cool £6.2m in value sales, hitting £161m, over the last twelve months [Nielsen 52 w/e 7 September 2019].