I wanted to address the elephant in the room: the $80 price of Zeronimo Leonis Blend. I've never received so many emails from readers about something before, so thank you for reaching out. I know the $80 price tag is a shock, and I can understand why especially in these economically hard times.

As a wine person, I expected there to one day be a range of options in this expanding category just like in the regular wine world. Some people love their $12 Yellow Tail and there’s nothing wrong with that. Other people, like me, have a yearning to experience the magic on the palette from a more tender wine, and we pay the price for that. Higher and lower end options in the category is a really exciting signal there is a widening of demand, which in the end, means more inclusivity for everyone.

To be frank, a lot of the $20-25 bottles are starting to taste the same. This doesn’t mean they are bad, just not very exciting anymore. Part of the problem is because 50% of the wines are coming from the same few plants as ‘white-labelling’ brands. One factory can make several different brands with unique and different labels, where marketers then using positioning and branding to sell their own bottles. This is not a new concept, it happens in every manufacturing category in the world including wine. Again, it’s a sign the category is growing and there is consumer demand for non-alcoholic wine.

With the rest of the category, unless the winemaker is using low-yield vines with the complexity that comes along with this fruit, a lot of the 'characteristics' that make wines stand apart are removed in dealcoholization. It's getting really hard to stand out in this field. Adding juice as sugar is one way around it, but the flat taste of unfermented juice homogenizes the uniqueness of the original fermented wine.

There are definitely people out there that are mad that non-alcoholic wine is more expensive than regular wine, but it actually takes twice the work and a lot more investment to make a great tasting liquid without alcohol. The wine is manufactured in the same way as usual, but then the winemakers have to invest in resources, technology and labour to then remove the alcohol.

In the case of Zeronimo, the Leonis Blend wine comes from very low-yield vines. The original version has been awarded 98-points by wine reviewers. The second-generation winemakers at Heribert Bayer invested in high-end, ground-breaking technology to remove the alcohol from the wine, without touching the characteristics of the award-winning liquid. It’s shocking how far ahead in taste and quality the result is. The price reflects the premium quality and the additional work that’s required to develop a wine of this stature.

My other hill to die on is that the other high-priced wine French Bloom is disgusting, even though the price is so high. There's a difference between marketing pricing and real economical pricing from the winery but sometimes it’s hard to tell. The richest champagne family in the world makes French Bloom, but yet they use the worst quality grapes for their dealcoholized wines. We know this because of distribution chain pricing. It's all about the margins and profit for French Bloom (which is now owned by Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy), and they’ve done a genius job of positioning, marketing and paying for placements on menus and in media.

You may not be able to afford the Leonis Blend right now, and I wouldn’t expect that everyone can. I certainly didn’t buy $80 Napa wines on a regular basis, but I absolutely did my research and bought the right one when it was time for something special. This is that special wine. If you’re not drinking and wondering how to get through Christmas dinner without a red wine, this is the one. Not French Bloom!

For the U.S. you can order Zeronimo here: https://oceanbeachbrands.myshopify.com/

For Canada, pre-order through here: https://www.thesobrmarket.com/collections/zeronimo

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