Australian Vintage Limited (AVL) and 10 industry partners will receive funding to help with research into no- and low-alcohol wines as part of the Federal Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Projects program funding.
The research grant to the value of $2,997,599 along with a partner contribution to the value of $3,706,753 (in cash and in-kind) will allow AVL and industry partners University of Adelaide, Australian Wine Research Institute, Treasury Wine Estates, Flavourtech, DrinkWise, Tarac Technologies, S.Smith and Son, Danstar Ferment, Mauri Yeast, and CHR Hansen to continue to innovate in the low and no-alcohol wine markets.
Speaking about the grant, Australian Vintage Chief Winemaker Jamie Saint said: “We’re extremely grateful to receive the Federal Government’s support. The grant allows us to conduct research with a key objective of optimising the flavour and mouthfeel of no and low products as well as drilling down into consumer and market insights of the category.
“The opportunity to work with a group of leading industry partners to take the growing NoLo category to the next level is something we are enormously excited by, improving the competitiveness, productivity and sustainability of the Australian wine industry. We want to position the Australian wine sector as the largest global producer of NoLo wines.”
AVL recently invested in a second spinning cone column to increase production capacity of its NoLo wines, and also to enable further research and development. Spinning once technology removes the alcohol at low temperatures, which helps preserve the wine’s varietal characteristics before it is bottled.
AVL has developed a number of no- and low-alcohol wines, with McGuigan Zero being the number one selling still non-alcoholic wine in Australia and the UK. The company also recently launched McGuigan Black Label Mid, which has 20 per cent less alcohol and calories than traditional Black Label.
In addition, the Tempus Two Zero range is based on the premise that it looks like wine, tastes like wine, is wine, but with less than 0.5 per cent alcohol, while its 6.8 per cent Lighten Up range is full in flavour and lighter in calories.
AVL will be the project lead of the grant-funded co-operative initiative and will work closely with the partners to achieve the project objectives.