Low-calorie wines have a lighter alcohol content, which can be achieved by harvesting grapes a few weeks earlier than normal. But by pulling grapes ahead of schedule, the ripened fruit miss out on some key aromatic and flavor compounds that http://www.lycos.com come together late in the maturation process.
Not everyone in the industry is sold on the concept of low-calorie wine. Some detractors point out that a caloric reduction of about 20 calories per serving might not be worth it.
“Low calorie [wine] is something that people can be curious about, but if you are really concerned about your health, I don’t think you should be focused on Skinnygirl,” said Ryan O’Connell, a California winemaker and marketing manager for NakedWines.com. “The better way to go about it is to make sure what you are drinking is good wine, and if that means drinking a little less, and higher quality, I think you’ll do yourself a much greater service.”
At NakedWines.com, a crowdfunding platform that connects independent wine makers to investors, less than 10% of the portfolio can be considered a low-calorie wine. And those lighter wines aren’t marketed that way, O’Connell said. Some wine styles, such as French wines, naturally have fewer calories than the standard glass.
“We have lower alcohol wines http://www.haosanshuily.net that are dry and are low-calorie, but we don’t make a big deal about it,” O’Connell said.
The teams behind Skinnygirl and Brancott Estate say they believe there’s a market for their wines, generally courting women in their 20s to late 30s.
Megan Frank, senior director at Beam Suntory, said there are a few challenges. In particular, when consumers first learn about low-calorie wines, they are initial skeptical about the taste.
“The biggest learning lesson for us was to make sure our communication and marketing plans let them know that they didn’t need to sacrifice taste,” Frank said. One way Beam Suntory tackled that was with in-store tastings.
Some experts say that the wine industry’s experimentation with lower-calorie wines mirrors what’s going on in the craft beer world. “Session beers” are a category that’s emerged and is basically any beer that contains no higher than 5% ABV. Those beers hope to pack the flavor that’s associated with craft beer, but with lower alcohol content and thus fewer calories.
“There had been a move toward big, concentrated wines,” said Kurt Lorenzi, vice president of global sourcing at wine and beer supplier Winery Exchange. “And now there’s a lot more interest in wines that are better balanced, and part of that is lower alcohol, and with it, lower calories.”