‘Middle Ground’ podcaster teams with Santa Rosa winemaker for non-alcohol wine

Their target market for FOY is millennial women between the ages of 31 and 35.|

PEG MELNIK

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

January 9, 2024

The skinny on non-alcoholic wines

Here are a handful of non-alcoholic wines to explore:

FOY, De-Alcoholized California Chardonnay, $28.99

Noughty Non-Alcoholic Sparkling Chardonnay, $22.

Giesen Non-Alcoholic Pinot Noir, $19.55.

Surely Non-Alcoholic Blanc, $26.

Gruvi, Alcohol-Free Bubbly Rosé , $36.

Growth spurt in non-alcoholic wine

A recent statistic from Beverage Alcohol Insights referring to the non-alcoholic wine, beer and spirits category:

“While non-alcoholic beer remains the largest subcategory within non-alcoholic options and has experienced a growth of 35% in 2023, non-alcoholic wine and spirits also experienced huge leaps in popularity, expanding by 83% and 167% year over year, respectively.”

More: pdne.ws/41TCjOj

De-alcoholized wine

With their FOY chardonnay now on the market, Damskey and business partner Caroline Stelte said their dealcoholized wine is a subset within the non-alcoholic category.

“For FOY, we made a wine and removed the alcohol, so our product is ‘alcohol removed’ or ‘dealcoholized’ and less than 0.5%,” he said. “ That’s because it contained alcohol at one point.”

As for alcohol free or 0.0%, Damskey said, “the products never contained any elements of alcohol, so they are more of an elixir of non alcoholic ingredients that come together to have a wine ish taste.”

More non-alcohol wine options, please.

Siena Buccigrossi is a 30-year old Millennial from Healdsburg who wants more quality non-alcoholic wines on the market. This Recruiting Director at Surf Search, a national firm that specializes in life sciences, is a strong proponent of non-alcoholic wines and here’s why:

“I like the option to feel included socially without drinking alcohol. Meeting up for drinks doesn’t have to mean alcohol. (She hasn’t yet tasted FOY.) I’ve tried Surely, Noughty and Gruvi. They’re okay. A bit sweet and tart. Their labels are fresh and attractive which is probably why I chose them over more traditional brands.”

Buccigrossi said non-alcoholic wine appeals to Millennials because her generation is drinking less.

“I like to have non-alcoholic beverages on hand for my non-drinking friends. Everyone likes to have a fun drink even if they don’t drink alcohol.”

Dry January

Dry January’s first campaign was in 2013, celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2023. Frank Posillico, a businessman and Italian American, founded the campaign in Huntington, New York.

There’s no organization that tracks the number of people participating in Dry January. However winemaker Drew Damskey, who produces the de-alcoholized brand FOY, said 20 to 30 percent of his friends and colleagues in Wine Country participate in their own version of Dry January.

Drew Damskey is an exhilarated, albeit tired papa, juggling a new baby and the birth of a new wine venture.

The 36-year-old millennial is elated he has found a “new frontier” in the non-alcoholic wine industry. This particular category of wine is experiencing explosive growth and Damskey finds the increased interest uplifting, considering the industry experienced a 2% drop in consumption in 2023.

Catapulted into the mainstream thanks to consumers’ new penchant for wellness and moderation, non-alcoholic wine has expanded by 83% in 2023, according to Beverage Alcohol Insights.

With their FOY chardonnay now on the market, Damskey and his business partner Caroline Stelte said their dealcoholized wine is a subset within the non-alcoholic category.

Synchronizing the launch of FOY with Dry January, Damskey and Stelte wanted to rally health-conscious consumers who are refraining from alcohol for 30 days.

Their target market, they said, is millennial women between the ages of 31 and 35.

“These are women who want to cut back on their drinking,” said Stelte, FOY’s founder and CEO who lives in Bentonville, Arkansas. “They have kids and they can’t afford to drink on a Tuesday night and wake up and function throughout their day on a Wednesday.”

The window of opportunity, Damskey said, is crafting an exceptional label in a category where quality is limited to a handful of brands.

“People are looking for healthier options and they’re willing to pay for it,” he said.

The FOY, Non-Vintage California Chardonnay is $28.99. (drinkfoy.co)

Damskey and Stelte said they were inspired by a fellow entrepreneur who created a dealcoholized wine brand four years ago and who, according to Nielsen data, has earned $10 million in revenue to date.

While they preferred not to disclose his name, they said he is a fellow entrepreneur and this brand isn’t a sub-category of a company with deep pockets like Gallo.

Beginning with 300 cases, Damskey and Stelte said they’ve already talked with big retailers who require a threshold of 250,000 cases.

“It’s kind of premature to talk about it at this point,” Damskey said. “We don’t want to jump to from zero to 250,000 cases but we aren’t shying away from being a big player in the non-alcoholic space.”

The partnership

Stelte, 24, came to Wine Country to celebrate her 21st birthday with her family.

The first spot they toured was Damskey’s family winery, Palmeri. Stelte’s mother Lee Anne and Damskey’s mother Daisy bonded and stayed in touch.

Later, when Stelte decided to pursue FOY, her mother suggested they contact Daisy. The vintner suggested they talk to her son.

“I told Drew my goals were to make FOY the most wine-like taste with the cleanest ingredients and the lowest calories,” Stelte said. “Drew absolutely crushed my goals.”

The process, Damskey said, follows the same steps in traditional winemaking except the one right before bottling is dealcoholizing the wine. A spinning cone strips the alcohol from the wine and this process is carried out by BevZero in Santa Rosa.

While Damskey focuses on production, Stelte heads marketing.

Well-suited for the challenge, she has a well spring of followers curious about her ventures. With her podcast Middle Ground, which focuses on young women going after their dreams, Stelte has nearly a million downloads. She also has 130,000 followers on her personal TikTok.

Both Stelte and Damskey are currently participating in Dry January, joining the growing numbers of those refraining from alcoholic drinks this month.

“The world we live in can be hard on your body,” Damskey said. “I started doing Dry January six or seven years ago after feeling so full and Rubenesque after the holidays, I know a lot of winemakers and industry folks that have rules about moderation and it’s important.”

Damskey and Stelte said they hope FOY will appeal to health conscious, moderate drinkers beyond Dry January and throughout the year.

“It’s never a bad time to make a course correction, a little tune up for the body,” Damskey said. “It’s nice to have a reset.”

You can reach wine writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter)@pegmelnik.