Sober Curious, Mindful & Alcohol-Free Drinkers Podcast: Low No Drinker
The companion podcast to Low No Drinker Magazine, the No.1 UK magazine for mindful & sober curious drinkers.
The Low No Drinker Podcast is the place to come and meet the people, places and brands leading the low-and-no-alcohol revolution. It’s your introduction to a life less intoxicated with no judgement, no pressure and no expectation.
Get closer to the people behind the drinks that make it possible for you to live a life less intoxicated, whether that’s for a night, a week, a month, a year or a lifetime, and the industry experts bringing it all to your door.
Find out what motivates them, what their own journey was like and why you should try their amazing drinks.
If you're new to drinking mindfully, just considering cutting back for a short time or beginning to explore a sober curious life, this is the podcast for you.
Sober Curious, Mindful & Alcohol-Free Drinkers Podcast: Low No Drinker
#65 No compromise with ZENO alcohol-liberated wines
Just past their two-year birthday, ZENO alcohol-liberated wines are a range of five (for now) hand-crafted wines, made “for wine enthusiasts when they choose to abstain”.
In this week’s conversation, I talk to co-founder David Hodgson about his transition from 25 years in traditional wine to launching an alcohol-free wine brand amidst the uncertainty of COVID, Brexit & a fledgling category presented to an unforgiving market.
We also touch on the inspirational philosophies behind the brand name, the growth of the non-alcoholic wine sector and ZENO’s plans for the development of both a new “serious” red wine and RTD wines in a can.
It’s a great convo with lots to sink your teeth into. Pour a glass, sit back and enjoy.
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WE CHAT ABOUT
0:00 Coming up...
2:10 David's story
9:33 3 years in the making
11:51 The only growth market
15:18 From traditional wine to alcohol-free liberation
16:10 Minimising the sugar content
17:01 Spanish winemaking
19:34 The ZENO range
27:08 RnD in frustrating times
29:19 A new 'serious' red wine
29:52 Non-alcoholic red wine challenges
33:04 Dealcoholised wine market predictions
35:16 Off trade / on trade / retail
36:45 International exports
38:31 Behind the brand name
41:01 A choice of moderation
42:17 The obstacle is the way
44:08 It's not about sobriety
45:22 Not a wine imitation
49:04 Finding ZENO
51:13 The BBQ-Q
52:44 ZENO's new RTD cans
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TRY ZENO* // @DRINKZENO // ZENOWINE.COM
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WE ALSO TALK ABOUT:
DRY DRINKER* (10% off with code LOWNODRINKERMAGAZINE)
WISE BARTENDER* (10% off with code LOWNODRINKERMAGAZINE)
THE ALCOHOL-FREE CO
CLUB SODA
AMATHUS
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BEST EPISODE TO CHECK OUT NEXT
#53 Creating a household legacy with NoughtyAF wines & Amanda Thomson
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I found Zeno, and Zeno is an ancient Greek philosopher. He has four virtues. I thought gosh, that's a nice looking word and it sort of points towards zero and it points towards no alcohol, but in a very subtle way. And we want to be subtle because we don't want our body screaming zeros and alcohol free and stuff, because we find that is stigmatizing. If you're looking at a more sophisticated level and the four virtues really, really grabbed us, which, um, before we get started, just a really quick question.
Speaker 2:Have you checked out the awesome free stuff available at lonodrinkermagazinecom? Forward slash free gifts well you should. Hi hi lono nation and welcome to this week's conversation on the lono Drinker podcast, bringing you closer to the people, places and brands leading the Lono and light alcohol revolution. Today I'm excited to be joined by the lovely Mr David Hodgson. David is the founder and CEO of Zeno Alcohol Liberated Wines, a range of organic, handcrafted wines that are made and I quote for wine enthusiasts when they choose to abstain.
Speaker 2:And there is a lot in that statement that rings true for so many people here in Lone O Nation, because I know that a lot of you might not be teetotal, you might not be sober or in recovery. You're just choosing to drink less on occasion, for whatever reason, for whatever length of time, and that is absolutely perfect. David is a lovely chap and we have gone back and forth a little bit on getting this date in the diary, so I'm glad to have him here now. We have just been chatting about our similar timelines in this industry similar timelines in this industry. David was one of the first contributors to issue four of Loner Drinker magazine, where he wrote a fantastic piece about the challenges of creating alcohol free, particularly red wines, and that's definitely something we're going to talk about today. So, without further ado, thank you very much for joining me, david. How are you today, my lovely?
Speaker 1:I'm terrific. Thanks, Denise. It's great to see you at last yes, we made it and yeah very happy to be here. As you said, we were um uh from your. You've got a big anniversary coming up two years and xeno turned to last december. So remember those early months and my gosh in two years. It's amazing how our sector has changed and what we're all doing has changed.
Speaker 2:It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. The growth in low and low is just huge and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down, and yours is one of those brands that is at the forefront of that.
Speaker 1:That's very kind of you to say.
Speaker 2:No, you are, you are, you're everywhere.
Speaker 1:You're right. The growth is great and now that we're getting the robust data and the research from IWSR and CAM and the other research organisations, it is very exciting and the forecasts keep going up and up, which is a great sign, as long as we, as brands and producers in the sector, fill those gaps and that growth, you know, really responsibly, and I think that's an important thing, which points back to the fantastic rise in quality across the board, with no low brands and the products that are being released, and I think that's a huge force behind the growth as well, because the choice is amazing and the quality of what we're getting is amazing. With wine, actually, this is where I was deciding to come into alcohol-free wine, just noticing that you know the brewers and the beers they're starting to. This is over five years ago when I started the research. But why can't anyone make a decent alcohol-free wine? And that sort of was the light bulb moment.
Speaker 2:That's the question. It's a question posed by many and it's one we're going to answer today. Let's start at the beginning, or at your beginning, really. I always like to start by asking my wonderful guest to share what the journey was that got you to the point where you decided to make this wonderful liquid. So start where you want to start. How did you get here?
Speaker 1:Okay, denise, it's quite a personal journey, to be honest. I had worked in the traditional wine trade for 25 years, travelling the world with some really wonderful brands, and this is about five years ago. I came sort of to a junction in my personal life and my career where I just and I also clicked over into my 50s. So a lot of things happened then and and I actually felt that, because you know, there's a lot of drinking in those 25 years the the traditional trade is quite enabling, although a lot of it is so much fun, but then time, you know, it takes its toll after a while and I felt that alcohol was taking more than it was giving at that stage and I was thinking, gosh, I really don't want to spend the rest of my life like this, you know, however long it may be or short. So I thought that was quite a. You know, I really changed what I thought and had to reassess where I was career-wise and personally and it was. I decided to actually give up drinking, which itself, for somebody who was drinking alcohol for business and for pleasure as well, I found it a lot harder to do than I thought and that was really frightening to me. By the same token, I was thinking well, I'd really like to reduce or possibly eliminate my alcohol consumption, because I think I've had enough for five lifetimes, not just one through having a career in it. But what do I do then? So this was what I was pondering then, and I started to. Well, I was aware of the alcohol-free beers, as I mentioned before, that were starting to get traction. I sort of started taking a look at those.
Speaker 1:The spirits were starting to catch up and I started researching the sector as a whole and also, having just given up drinking, I was buying a lot of the products that were available from. If there was anything you know this is five years ago If there's anything on shelf, I would grab it, but there was, to be honest, there was more available online at that stage, from the nature of you know what an early stage it was with retail. And boy, the first 12 months was dire. I could not find anything that would get me anywhere near, just the. It's the ritual and the experience. You know the wine experience, the flavours of wine and the feel of it, and I tried so many different things. I really forced myself to like some of these spirits that were early movers as well, and I really, you know, when I was honest with myself I thought they're really not cutting it for me. But you know, this is a really early stage of five years ago. So I persevered, a really early stage five years ago. Um, so I persevered, but the what was telling me was, um, I, I couldn't see where wine was. Um, in this area there are a few brands were that were making um, uh, de-alkalized wines and, um, some of them were okay. What I tended to do was to to blend the ones that I bought online and come up with something that was a little bit more like my style, and I played around with a few botanical distillations which people actually use now in some of the wine-like products, and just started experimenting.
Speaker 1:At the same time kept researching and this is interesting too, because I'd given up drinking to go on and be really authentic with the Zeno project, but I was still doing some work in the traditional wine trade.
Speaker 1:So over to Helsinki to a trade show representing my traditional wines show, representing my traditional wines, and I crossed paths with Will Willis, who is our commercial director and co-founder of Zeno, and he's a great guy. He and I hit it off and I showed him some of the research I'd done to that stage and he liked the look of it because he'd also had he was working for Frexenote before and did a lot of work with them in commercial but also in their wines and product development as well, and he'd done some work on their Fresh and Zero. So he knew he sort of had his grounding on the technicalities of making alcohol free. So that was great. So then there were two of us on the research project. Cut a long story short. We were joined by a very prominent master of wine at our research and development stage, but it was three years later before we released our first commercial wines and that was in December 22. So that's how long it took and we didn't really quite expect it to be that long, but it was worth the wait.
Speaker 2:That's a long time to go from ideation to delivery.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, we had a few lockdowns through that time as well that we had to work around and we were flying unstable de-alkalization samples across and they were getting stuck in Brexit logistics as well with customs and boy, it was really challenging. Sometimes we just thought, because we were working remotely in the UK then as well, that we just are we going to make it? You know, is this really possible? What we've set ourselves out here as a task?
Speaker 2:That must have been quite a trying time, and hats off to you and Will and the team for soldiering through, because a lot of people would have come up against all of that and gone. Actually, you know what this is too young a market. I there's no guarantees this is actually going to work. Is it worth me putting this much time and effort and money into something that might not see the light of day?
Speaker 1:You're absolutely right and I think, know, hats off to all of the founders in Low and no, because everybody's taken enormous risks and it's so. It is so gratifying to see, you know, the groundswell happen and the you know the good products come to the surface that are now, you know they're worldwide brands now in export markets as well, and it's great to see the whole segment go from, you know, a rising star to a standalone drinks category and the only growth category in the global drinks world. So, you know, it's fantastic timing. That's such a good story to to for that sort of for that to actually happen, the momentum to take off and for people to start understanding it.
Speaker 1:And you know, you, um, it was actually helped by by um, by people who are locked down with covid, because, you know, as you remember, there was so much on social media about lifestyle, about re-evaluation, about how people feel and all of these new objectives, and that certainly helped along because we found that, you know, in the early years and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think people were more, it was more stigmatised and if it was alcohol free, it was because you had a drinking problem or were pregnant or had an illness or not, really just didn't drink and wanted to try something else, and it was that stigma has really really reduced over the last, just the last year, and you can see it's now. You know alcohol-free wines and other drinks are now being promoted and recommended through lifestyle, nutrition, food, travel, you know all sorts of things and there are collaborations with um. You know not just sobriety um sites, and that's really opened it up, I think, for a lot of people, consumers in particular absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know it has gone from that. Uh, you know, either as a woman, you, you must be pregnant, uh, or you know, like you say, do you have a problem with alcohol? Or the other one was the other one you're on, I'm on antibiotics, you know those are the only three reasons. So now it's almost cool. You know like everybody is looking at this now and as from a completely different perspective you've hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 1:It is actually now quite cool and it's a trend, and you know that that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:It's just what we want to see does that mean that you and I are trendsetters? David, it looks like it at my age. I mean, you're not my age, but I think that's. I'm not far off, darling, I'm not far off.
Speaker 1:It's. It's just great to see the traction with the whole category, because you've spoken to a lot of of founders here that there is so much passion and skill and talent and um. So it's, it's great to see it, um it, on the up and up it is.
Speaker 2:it is and I think you made an interesting point there because you mentioned that, uh, low and no is the only category in drinks at the moment which is seeing an uptick in sales, whereas full strength alcohol, particularly spirits, are really struggling. Spirits are falling their sales. It must be interesting for you, coming from the world of traditional wine. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that transition and how Zeno and your project, before it became what it is now, was received, because traditional wine is just that it's very traditional. You know it's not particularly open to changes?
Speaker 1:You're bang on there. It's not particularly open to changes, you're bang on there. It's quite traditional and at first, you know, will and I were doing the research, doing our trials, working out what things cost and where you can have a. You know where the best places are to have it made. And when we discussed with fellows in the traditional wine trade they would so often say, well, that's impossible to get to what you want. Because we were saying we didn't want to use sugar to give the. You know, we think that sugar just fills in the gaps in the palate for wines and other low-end products and we were adamant we didn't want to use sugar. When you give yourself that challenge, you've got a real winemaking and cellar challenge there because you know, as you know, without alcohol there's no framework for the aroma and flavour molecules to hang from and get the lift out of the glass for the aromatics. So we had to find something that could replace that and hence taking three years to get there.
Speaker 1:One of the fantastic developments we had was that we started working with our partner winery, which is in Castilla Mancha, spain. It's a fantastic place and it was our choice of wine growing and making area because of the centuries of tradition in the area there in Spain. They also are leaders in the EU with sustainability, you know, wind harnessing, wind power, solar energy, water reticulation and conservation and the upcycling of organic material back to vineyards. So we thought that's great, because any new brand has to have a sustainability charter these days and it's very important. So that was another thing why we sought to be in Spain. So we partnered with.
Speaker 1:It's a family vineyard, family-owned vineyard and winery and they have quite a big capacity. But we're really pleased because, being a family, we have that kind of relationship with them and they're really engaged with what we're doing at Zeno and just working year on year, bottling on bottling, increasing the sophistication in our wines, reducing residual sugar which we've just done again for the latest bottling and working from the vineyard with viticulture and getting the grapes balanced correctly for the best result through the de-alkalization process, which is really important, and then to the finished wines. So our team works on every step of that. There's nothing that's contracted out. We work very closely with BevZero, who are the world's leading de-alkalization technology and when the stars align, the winery is in Villa Robledo in Castilla Mancha. Bev Zero are only one hour by road away, which is terrific. So we're not, you know, we're all there in that triangle and our teams us, the Zeno team, the winery team and the Bev Zero team work really closely together, so we've got a really good platform for research and development and continuous improvement of our products.
Speaker 2:Sounds fantastic. It sounds wonderful and also somewhere that I'd like to come and visit, so I'd love to pop out and see you.
Speaker 1:It's a fantastic area. There's a lot going on there and there's an amazing ecosystem of of course, there's this biodiversity, there's all of the sustainability that I talked about. There's a lot of local um produce of of you know the cured meats, the manchego cheese, and we know how well all of those go with wine and we modeled our styles on their suitability with those local foods. You know grilled meats and amazing and cheeses and stuff amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, let's stick with that, then, and tell me about the range, because those who are watching on youtube will be able to see behind me, I have a selection of beautiful bottles. Um, I know that, as I said, you've been going for a couple of years now. You've gone through a couple of iterations. You started with, uh, your initial offerings. You've added more into the mix, so take me through the, the Zena range, and then I'd love to talk a bit more about that production process.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, you're right because you've known us from the beginning. We started with a white, a red and a white sparkling because they're the most popular of three wines if you're going to make three to make. Very importantly, too, is our varietals that we use, because we're using the native local varietals, because we wanted if we're giving the winemaking team the challenge of making sophisticated alcohol-free wines, so working with de-apolization as well, we didn't want to introduce too many or any new varietals to work with. We wanted to work with what this winery and family are renowned for doing and they know inside out from generations of of of winemaking, viticulture and research. So it's no surprise that we started with the Viera varietal for our still white. Yeah, a very nice and typical. That's it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and we've had a labelling change, which you've probably noticed as well. Yes, the new labels we just released beginning of this year in line with the new 2023 vintage, so that's really exciting. We started this year with new vintages, new presentation, and so that's really good. We've got branded capsules now, which we're very proud of. You know, when you started so small and all you know we've self-funded the whole way. These developments are really touching for us as we take these next steps. But back to the wines. The red is a Tempranillo Cabernet blend about 80% 20%, and the area is renowned for that kind of blend. Good, that's very good to see.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful glass here and that lovely deep red colour, you know you pour it into a nice bold glass. Yes, please join me.
Speaker 1:The colour's fantastic. I'm going to have a glass of our white, the Viura. As we go Now, the Viura has, if we start with the stylistically Viura's quite aromatic, more on the dry side, and we're especially more on the dry side because we have very low residual sugar, but it's sort of it's on the Sauvignon Blanc, shannon, young, zesty, zippy quite high acidity in that spectrum. Now we go to the red yes, where the Tempranillo Cabernet has some really lovely spicy characters. So we're looking at red berries, spice, some green pepper in there as well, cherries. If you smell that one, which is the latest vintage, the new release you have, you should be able to get some cherries and spice on there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's in there. It wasn't bottled that long ago.
Speaker 1:So it does. It does open up more, like the previous vintage did, and that's another great thing. Um, working from vintage to vintage, when we bottle our new, next bottling we put all the experience we've learned from the previous one into practice and that has, um, that's been really interesting. So we keep moving ahead in in the level of sophistication that we're seeking. Now onto the sparkling. Our first sparkling is using Macabeo varietal, which is a relative you are so on cue which is a relative of the Viura that we use in the dry white and the still white, and the difference is that the viura in the still white is a riper style. It's got more tropical fruit characters, more stone fruit characters and more elderflower. And for the sparkling we wanted to have a more restrained sort of a bit younger, higher acidity Macabeo, which is the same grape variety really from up on the slopes in the vineyards that actually didn't ripen as quickly as the vines for the still. So we did get more elegance there for the sparkling higher acidity and really delicate elderflower and brioche characters which are really typical of very good carver, which the winery and the family also make. So we basically just wanted to replicate what they do with their wonderful carvers in an alcohol-free sense. And just one more thing about that with our sparkling wines we also pressurise them to about 4.9 bar, or it might move a couple of points depending on the bottling and that's really important because we wanted to get that luxury sparkling, traditional champagne sort of style mousse and bead which we have. If you pour it into a good glass it's got that really delicate bead and mousse and that's how we achieved that.
Speaker 1:Now we've grown to five, so we've added our two pinks, so we have our still rosé which, very interestingly, is made from boba, which is a grape variety that I think has probably been overlooked a bit in the past few years, but we think it's going to come back into fashion because what it does for rosé is amazing, with a really nice crunchy raspberry characters, some white peach very nice classic rosé characters and for the sparkling Macabeo again, which is the cava base, and we've blended just a few percentage, about 3%, of ganache, which is ganache, to give it that nice savoury character. So we're really happy with them. One thing you'll notice is that the two pinks are still the previous label which we're just moving on from, and they will be coming as we go through this quarter of 2025 because you tend to bottle pinks. You know pinks are rosé. They tend to be released with nice freshness for spring and summer, so they will be coming and they look fantastic with the new packaging as well.
Speaker 2:Amazing, I do. I mean, the labelling was lovely before, but it's also lovely again now.
Speaker 2:But what's nice is seeing the uh, the progression, you know that you know you've you've started with something that you were obviously rightly very proud of, um, and and I like what you said before about you know moving on to the next generation of bottling, you're taking what you've learned and you're improving on that all the time, because in obviously I am not a winemaker, but from the people that I speak to and from the process that I understand, you know there's so much R&D that needs to go into making these non-alcoholic wines and to producing each year something that can stand up on its own.
Speaker 1:Would we do it again, would you?
Speaker 2:do it again.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I've loved it. Whoever's involved, the whole team has loved doing it and we've also been really frustrated and hated it at times. You know, because just because it is such a tricky thing, wine is difficult out of all of the beverages. That's why wine was sort of more sluggish in getting into the market. It's also why we've got an early perception of alcohol-free wine as being really sweet. And you will see at consumer tastings that people will say you'd say, would you like to taste an alcohol-free wine? And they'll automatically say, oh, it just tastes like sweet grape juice. Well, we're changing that and we want to get as many stips to lips as we can because once they taste them they say, oh my God, that's really alcohol-free and that's what we want.
Speaker 1:But there was, you know, those first couple of years where there was a lot of sugar around and unfortunately it tainted people's first impressions. So we're working to change that and I think across the board the quality levels are rising. So it's very good for all of the producers to be, you know, putting all of this work in. We want to stay ahead with Zeno, so we have ongoing research and development with our winemakers and with the viticulturists. Very excitingly as well, we have an R&D project with one of the leading yeast growers and suppliers, so we're looking at different types of fermentation and ways of giving complexity and sweetness that aren't with residual sugar. So it's really exciting. We're actually also going to release a very serious red in the next couple of months which takes it up a level. It'll have a more sort of entree, browse, roomy wine list presentation and it'll be a barrel-aged Tempranillo that's made really for gastronomy, a real food style. So look out for that. I'll put a list down here that I'll need to send you a bottle as soon as we've bought one.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because that is an area I wanted to pick your brain on, if I may, because, as I mentioned earlier on, you did write a great article for Issue 4 of the.
Speaker 1:Manatee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember, yeah, I enjoyed that it was great and it focused on why there was such a challenge to produce uh, alcohol-free wines, particularly reds, and reds are the area that I get asked about uh the most, and I'm sure it's probably the same for you and others that you come across, because people can be very unforgiving, they can be very judgmental, they have a lot of preconceived ideas and when they taste an alcohol-free red, if it's not instantly perfect, there's very little room in people's palates for that opportunity.
Speaker 1:I know what you mean. Yes, I know what you mean for sure, and there are still some out there that are doing quite a commercial job and using a lot of sugar. But I, what I love to see those producers who are, who are really serious about it, you know, like will and myself and our team are, and really wanting to, to build on sophistication and balance and texture, and but to get that on the reds is is very, very difficult and we learned that we we spent days in the lab getting um, getting our xeno red, the temponio cabernet, up to a level that, um, that we'd be happy with releasing it, you know, commercially. And it was really the trickiest one because if we, if we made an adjustment in a just a minuscule adjustment, with one component, be it texturising or be it with acidity, the others would just fly out of whack and it was extremely challenging. But we were really thrilled.
Speaker 1:I flew back with a bottle of our first production. We did a small commercial run in September in 22 to launch in December. I flew back and ran it into the International Wine and Spirit Competition and they awarded us a gold with that. So that was a great start for us and it really shone a light on Zeno at that really early stage, which was great.
Speaker 1:But I must also say Will, my co-founder. He has a background in fine wines, he has a fantastic palate and really good technical knowledge and you know, as a team, when we're in the winery, in the laboratory, doing our finessing and blending after we've got the base wines back from de-alkalization, we put a lot into that and there's a wealth of experience with our little team. Our winemaker gets very excited when we hit the right spot, which I was about to say sweet spot, but it's certainly not that with us. So, no, it's really rewarding a lot of work to get them right, which is why I think you know you haven't seen a lot of them doing it right in mass market because it's a huge investment in time and just personally. And if you were paying for that like you know, we bootstrapped our first few years I don't think many people would pay to do what we had to do for three years to get where we are.
Speaker 2:People would pay to do what we had to do for three years to get where we are. So where do you see the de-alcoholized wine market going? Because we've said you know things are going from strength to strength. Things are growing. Is it expanding? Are reds going to start finding their footing and we're going to see more of that coming through? Are we going to be sticking? A lot of brands make sparkling wines because you know it's a slightly easier proposition to introduce. What do you think we could expect to see in the alcohol-free wine market in the next few years?
Speaker 1:Fingers crossed it all goes well. But there'll be growth overall for everybody in the space, you know at the moment. You know the founders are all quite friendly, there's plenty of room for everybody and that should go for some time because we've got a lot of markets to fill. We're still only about 2% of the overall volume in beverages, so there is a lot to gain and you know we're seeing alcohol consumption globally um declining, uh as as wellness and and the the information out there about you know how it affects health and and your productivity and everything um becomes more widespread and understood. Um, and regarding styles, that's really interesting because we're we're pretty, even with our five where they're going. But I think you know sparkling is really popular with alcohol-free because, as you said, they are a little easier to make because the carbonation is.
Speaker 2:It helps yeah.
Speaker 1:It can be a bit forgiving at times and it can also really lift those innate characters in your wine, the. If you look at the UK, we started in our first year we were really focused on the off-trade and retail and we were very lucky that we got a listing with Waitrose, because that was brilliant for us, prestige grocer and we wanted to still have the brand credentials of Zeno but still want to be able to get into the other sectors as well. You know, because sometimes the on-trade will be a little nervous or apprehensive about brands that are national, distributed and grosses et cetera, but not so much with alcohol free because it's such a small segment, but not so much with alcohol-free because it's such a small segment. But we're now working more in the on-trade now that we're into this year, which is terrific, and we've teamed up with Core Drinks who have a fantastic portfolio of alcohol-free spirits, botanical distillations, us when otherwise and brilliant sparkling teas, as you probably know. Spirits, botanical Distillations, us when Other Wines and Brilliant Sparkling Teas, as you probably know. So that's great. The core team and us will be moving, growing the regional wholesale and on-trade distribution in the UK and we also have a project with fuller's pub group at the moment where we um are doing promotions through their outlets, so through the whole estate, um with xeno, red and white, and then looking at sparkling and other things down the track. But it's getting, you know, getting the operations, the pubs, engaged with alcohol-free, getting them confident in selling it and being able to present it as, in you know, would you like your wine with or without alcohol, which we're getting to in the entree. It's really exciting.
Speaker 1:And then internationally, we are exporting now to just over nine export markets, most recently USA, which is great. We have fantastic importers, song Zero in Canada who are doing a great job for us there. The Nordics we have distribution in all of the Nordics and I just would highlight Finland because we, the three Zeno wines, have since December a national listing with the Alco Finland Monopoly, which is brilliant and the Finns are loving them. And also Alco has a very progressive health and wellness charter as a company. So it's great to see, you know, alcohol-free wines really getting traction there. And otherwise, with USA, we've got Ireland as well. We're exporting to Spain. I think that's about it at the moment, but that's quite a lot yeah, you're getting around you get those down and all of those markets have um.
Speaker 1:So you know different dynamics going on. They're different, different stages and um and have you know different likes and dislikes.
Speaker 2:It's really exciting it is, it sounds and, and hats off to you. Congratulations. You know that's, it's no mean feat, uh, reaching all those different territories and and getting a footing and a holding in those for a product that, like I said, is, is is met with challenge, and for you to be able to do that and do it so well, is is a great achievement. Um, I wanted to ask you, while I've got you um because I I admit I I know a little bit of the story, but I love the story of your name tell me a little bit about why the brand is called xeno oh yeah, thanks, um xeno.
Speaker 1:Well, as I mentioned, as we're going through the um, the, the research and development and trial periods, we, uh we were getting locked down intermittently and one of them was one of the final, really long lockdowns and you'll recall I had given up drinking and I know lockdowns are going to be really challenging. In the old days I would have been able to get rid of the frustration with a few glasses of wine, or maybe too many, who knows um, but so I decided to. You know, it was a very philosophical time. I think a lot of people in the world, worldwide were were becoming philosophical and looking at at their lives and reflection, because I mean, well, I could ride around London on my bike and not see anybody or any traffic, so it was a pretty interesting time.
Speaker 1:And I started to read and listen to YouTubes on philosophy and I thought, just, you know, for my own, as a bit of a hobby, while we're doing the research remotely and not being able to really enjoy a great glass of wine through that time.
Speaker 1:And I found Zeno, and Zeno is an ancient Greek philosopher and he has four virtues, and I thought, gosh, that's a nice-looking word and it sort of points towards zero and it points towards no alcohol, but in a very subtle way. And we want to be subtle because we don't want our bottles screaming zeros and alcohol-free and stuff, because we find that is stigmatising. If you're looking at a more sophisticated level, and the four virtues really grabbed us, which are moderation, wisdom, justice and courage moderation, wisdom, justice and courage and so we thought that it just sounds like a really good resource for a brand and you know we registered and here we are, so we're very happy with it and it sort of has a nice succinct story. You know, if it's about virtuous drinking and and if you live a life as much as you can by these virtues, you'll have a very fulfilled life. So it's a nice light, philosophical, um philosophical story there I do, I love, I love that story.
Speaker 2:I wanted you to share it because I think it it really embodies a lot of what I personally believe about this space. You know, I've said to you before you know, before we press record, that this isn't a sobriety or recovery podcast. A lot of people that I come into contact with or who are part of Lono Nation are moderating or are just cutting down and as you said, it's fashionable.
Speaker 1:There are people who are drinking you know their favourite traditional wines on the weekend, or you know if they're driving, or whatever the occasion but you've got the choice now to have a great glass of wine when you're not drinking alcohol.
Speaker 1:And it was that compromise level that I wanted to narrow, because I'd be out in my early days of not drinking and I'd order whatever the alcohol free God forbid a mocktail or something like that, because I hate the word and they were used so often full of sugar, and I'd be so disappointed and go like, is it really worth it? Maybe I will just have water, but that sort of gave me a lot of incentive. You know, a little bit of this is selfish, I must admit, because I didn't want to give up drinking without being able to have a great glass of wine. So that is a huge incentive for me and we seem to be on the right track. The other thing about Zeno that I'll say is that he has some sayings as well which actually are very important to us.
Speaker 1:Our tagline for the brand is happiness is a good flow of life, which is a Zeno quote which comes from his you know his teachings on living a virtuous life. So it all wraps together really nicely. But there's another one that became our mantra in the early days and that's the obstacle is the way, which sort of grounded in stoicism, and it's about, you know, it's about it's not going to come, it's not going to happen. If you take the easy road, if you keep facing the challenges, you'll get there, and there couldn't be anything more fitting for what we've had. You know what we've had to do to get to where we are with xeno, so it all sort of knits in really nicely yeah, it's such, it's such a wonderful brand story.
Speaker 2:I absolutely adore that and that I really appreciate that, denise thanks yeah, no, and that that last phrase or the obstacle is the way. I think that's something that so many people. If we could just embrace that a little bit more and and don't don't run away from or don't hide from or don't avoid the thing that is causing the challenge, and embrace it and find your way through it. I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1:You're hitting it on the head and it's in many ways it's about getting ahead, it's about breaking new ground. It can be about just making that change where, okay, you know, somebody who maybe consumes a bit more alcoholic wine or whatever drink than they would like to be consuming can just sort of ratchet that back and it may be a bit of an obstacle at first, but you know, the testimonials are out there on social media how people are feeling and working so much better just by making the adjustments. You know we're not talking about sobriety and giving up drinking totally. I'm a result of that. I've never felt better since I did. But yes, it's about tackling those obstacles that you're able to and just becoming a better, happier person.
Speaker 2:What I really appreciate, david, is that as you as a founder who is yourself a teetotal, who yourself is sober and doesn't drink alcohol, is not positioning your drink as only for people who are sober and teetotal. You are positioning your drink as a service to people for those times when they choose to step foot into that way of drinking. And I think that's so important in this space that we let people understand and and appreciate that this isn't for one one type of person, this isn't just for whoever fits in box a who is going through this certain life circumstance. This drink is for you now. This is for people who want to experience a different way of drinking and it doesn't really matter why.
Speaker 1:Yes, and there are more and more of those people coming out now and actually taking the plunge. And, as I said, we wanted to narrow the compromise gap so you can just go from the traditional wine list to the alcohol-free wine list and still have a fantastic experience. We are not trying to imitate any traditional wines here and I think that's real, that this is important, especially at this stage with the better quality alcohol-free winemakers. I tell people, consumers, competitions, panels, et cetera stop looking for alcohol, because a lot of people are still looking for alcohol for whatever reason. But if you do that, then a lot of the alcohol-free wines actually come into their own.
Speaker 1:There are so many wonderful nuanced characters that you actually wouldn't get if it had alcohol in it. We're getting so much better with the structure and how it feels. So you know, we're becoming sort of a standalone wine experience. Not, you know, people expect that we're trying to mirror traditional wines, but as we go we're real realizing that we actually don't have to because we'll be able to go into this direction with making them more complex and interesting and layered and sophisticated. So very interesting next couple of years for everybody in this area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's so important. You know that you're right. You know part of it is the education piece to consumers, to let them know. You know I always like to use the phrase manage expectations. This is not a wine. This is not going to taste like a wine that you are used to drinking If you love an Argentinian Malbec, if you love a Prifuse, if you have your favourites. This is going to be different because the liquid is different to what it was before.
Speaker 2:But, that's okay. We have to help people learn to appreciate it for what it is rather than comparing it to what it's not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't expect to be everybody's favourite, but if you have a range of styles, what I like to see is that out of our range somebody has a favourite. Yes, even if they're new to alcohol-free and you know that kind of thing, not just you know sweet grape juice kind of response that we've seen out and about.
Speaker 1:So no, that is important, that it's their beverages in their own right. Nothing goes with food like wine, you know, and I think that's really important as well. It's another reason why we keep our residual sugar really low. And you know, our last bottlings most of them, apart from the red are just 18 grams per litre, which is very wide. We're working on bringing them down a little bit more, but we have to, of course, keep our texture and balance right as well. So then we go back to the vineyard and how you know the ripeness and the characters of the grapes and work through it again. So it's really interesting to keep sort of improving in that way all the time.
Speaker 2:Amazing. I think you're doing fantastic work, David.
Speaker 1:Thank you and I really appreciate your support and what you do for the whole sector. Going out to trade consumers, your viewership and readership crosses into a lot of sectors of the low and no world out there.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Producers, brands, retailers, consumers I've seen them all responding to you, so you've done a great job. Thanks for your support.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm trying I'm just trying to spread the word, spread the good word. Speaking of which, if people want to spread the good word about Zeno, if they want to go and try the range so that they can find their new favourite, what's the best place for people to find you, to buy a bottle and to reach out to you if they want to get in touch?
Speaker 1:Well, we have our website, which is zenowinecom, and we're just about to launch a new website in the next couple of weeks, which is really exciting.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you're so busy. You're launching, you're doing everything.
Speaker 1:I know my gosh, but we wanted to crack, you know, get into 2025 and really take it by the horns. We there are a few of our wines the red, white and sparkling in selected Waitrose stores. So, if it happens or, of course, online and Waitrose seller the wonderful online low and no retailers like Dry Drinker, wise Bartender, the Alcohol Free Co I'm probably missing some there and if I have, it's certainly not intentional. And now we're growing in the entre. We also have wonderful consumer and trade distribution through Amethyst, which is brilliant, and they've got standalone shops through London and just outside London and also online and also supplying trade as well. So that's pretty good. Otherwise, take a look at the website All of us there could be international people watching this, so have a look. If there's something in your area watching this, so have a look if there's something in your area. And, um, we also have our instagram at drink xeno and we're a small team, so if anyone responds to us, it'll be one of us who are getting back to you but that's lovely.
Speaker 2:It's nice when you, when you, when people know they can reach out and and uh and make connection with you. So I'll make sure that's all listed in the show notes for you. David, before I let you go, it's time for my last question, which is my now infamous because I say so barbecue question. Yep, that's it. Get your pondering on.
Speaker 1:The sun's just streaming in here, so that was perfect timing. There you go. We've just gone to the barbecue.
Speaker 2:We are. We're going to the barbecue and we are taking some drinks along with us. Obviously, we're taking several cases of all the different Zeno wines. But other than that, when you are off to a barbecue in this kind of situation, what else do you like to enjoy in the low-no space?
Speaker 1:I love looking at all of what's available out there and if you just look onto that shelf you'll see a lot of the low-no brands there that I love. Besides the wines, which are coming along really well, I love a lot of the botanical distillations and you know particularly the bitter aperitif styles and I drink them a lot. But you know, you've said barbecue and I grew up, I was born and raised in Australia and if we're having a barbie on a hot day in Australia it's got to be beer.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And mine would be a Lucky Saint IPA, nice Great choice, great choice, great choice.
Speaker 2:Very popular beer. They've done amazingly great stuff. The team there are fantastic.
Speaker 1:I really respect what they've done and very, very excellent product and branding too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I just had a. I just spied you were talking about your shelf. There Do I see some Zeno cans?
Speaker 1:Oh yes, Well spotted. We will be producing our first run of Xeno cans in the next couple of months as well. Oh my goodness, We've had some markets, export markets, request them and on the back of that, we've showed them to um so uk as well, and we've got certainly enough interest to proceed, and we'll be starting off with a sparkling white and a sparkling pink, sparkling rose as well well, those have got to be coming to the barbecue as well, haven't they?
Speaker 1:yes, exactly, I love that. But you know, it's amazing how, how it's changing. You know, I remember the days when screw caps people were saying it'll never take on, people will never accept screw caps on wine. And then all of a sudden you've got cans and people are going no, no one will ever buy wine in a can or drink it. And it's just a sign of the times. People are going for, you know, convenience, for the quality of what you can get out of them, the disposability If they want it, we'll make it, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I love? An RTD? I love a can. I love that being able to go to a barbecue or go to a picnic, or you know, sunny days, we take the kids to the park and I want to have something that's adult for me to enjoy. That's not, you know, one of their fruity drinks, and so that's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 1:I think it's wonderful, yeah, and the river's my happy place Spring, summer, it is so soothing, after you know, being in the centre of London and running around and I love it. And cans and RTDs are so handy for disposing when you're boating and stuff. So, yes, this is an exciting thing.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Well, make sure you keep in touch, let me know when they're out and we'll spread the word and make sure that Lono Nation knows that they can go and get their hands on some Zeno in a can?
Speaker 1:I certainly will. You'll be one of the first to know.
Speaker 2:David, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure talking to you and learning more about the xeno journey, and I'm really excited for for what you guys are doing and for what's to come.
Speaker 1:Cheers well, I appreciate that too, denise. Thanks very much and well done. Long no drinker.
