Winebits 754: “Healthy” wine, wine etiquette, Coke and booze

This week’s wine news: More non-alcoholic wine “health benefits,” plus wine etiquette, and Coke inches into alcohol

• Just 110 calories! The Wine Curmudgeon, ever vigilant about health claims made by non-alcoholic wine, found another in his inbox recently. The product heralded its calorie count – just 110 for one serving. And a bottle only costs $30. How could we turn that down? Easily, of course, since one serving of wine only has 125 calories. And, because, there is no ingredient information on the product’s website, we don’t know how many of those calories are added sugars. As always, the devil is in the details.

• Splitting the check? This young people and wine thing is much more complicated than even the WC suspects; no wonder the wine business is so baffled. A woman asked a web financial guru how to split a check when her date had two glasses of wine (chardonnay and cabernet) and she didn’t have any wine because she doesn’t drink during the week. Yes, my sarcasm is intended, and aimed at the guy; how cheap can he be? But the question also illuminates the challenges wine faces in attracting younger people – increased abstention and the high cost (two glasses for $36!) among many others. Because, of course, not all of us are aging Baby Boomers eating at steak houses who drop a couple of hundred dollars for wine without a second thought.

• Coke and booze: Coca-Cola is inching into the alcohol business in the U.S., an effort that one top executive calls an “interesting experiment.” It has three products – a hard version of the Topo Chico water; a hard lemonade knockoff, and my favorite, canned cocktails under the Fresca brand. Fresca, for those of us of a certain age, still elicits giggles. The story is fascinating reading, given the company knows so little about selling alcohol. But, as the official notes, if there is a demand for it, why not?

Photo: Matt W Newman on Unsplash