With the health crisis, sales of sparkling wines, Champagne and Crémant, collapsed in 2020.
In Champagne the time is not for celebration. With a record drop of -7.5% in value and -9.5% in volume, 2020 was a particularly difficult year for the Champagne region. Sparkling wines follow the same trend. If the sector expects a rebound in sales once the pandemic is over, the producers are working on innovation and diversification of the ranges, in particular by taking an interest in non-alcoholic drinks whose sales progression does not weaken.
Recently, the famous Barcelona-based cava brand Freixenet launched a non-alcoholic version of their black cordon 0.0. The Freixenet Gratien brand, which also owns Festillant, another effervescent but alcohol-free drink, is looking to diversify. Frédérique Lenoir, the brand's marketing director, explains the choice of alcohol-free drinks: "A quarter of the population consumes alcohol and our Festillant brand is on the rise, hence our new proposal for an alcohol-free Freixenet cava.
Even if the market is very buoyant, few brands are present at the moment. Among them, d'Artigny, a brand of the Bardinet Group, alone represents 55% of the volume market share, while Festillant has 25%. At the end of last year, Bardinet launched a more upmarket version of d'Artigny, the Prestige version. This new drink, still alcohol-free, is made from 100% Chardonnay grapes and sold with a very qualitative and refined packaging, a positioning close to Champagne wines.
The giants of the sparkling drinks sector have understood the interest of alcohol-free drinks, whose sales are soaring. It is now time for the other producers of sparkling wines or champagne to take an interest in these new products.