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Who buys alcohol-free wine: three motives and what the data show

A University of León study finds three buyer profiles in Spain. We test them against data from the UK, Italy, Germany, France and the US.

At the end of October the International Journal of Wine Business Research published a study from the University of León on who in Spain is willing to drink alcohol-free wine, and why. The authors, Fuentes-Fernández, del Campo-Villares and Mendaña-Cuervo, surveyed 638 people online and came out with three profiles built around three motives: social habits, health and price. It is a tidy picture and an easy one to repeat. It is worth testing against other data, from the UK, Italy, Germany, France and the US, because the sample was Spanish only and the authors themselves say the finding should be carried over to other markets with care.

What the León team found

The method is unusual for wine research: fsQCA, or fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Rather than looking for one main cause, it looks for several combinations of traits that lead to the same outcome. Here there is a single outcome: a high willingness to drink alcohol-free wine. There are five traits: age, sex, education, how much alcohol a person drinks and how many alcohol-free drinks.

Going by the open abstract, the profiles look like this:

  • social habits: younger people who drink alcohol-free drinks in moderation;
  • health: people with a university education who drink little alcohol and have alcohol-free drinks in moderation;
  • price: younger people again, but with higher alcohol consumption.

The authors add an important caveat: no single trait is either necessary or sufficient. Age on its own explains nothing, and nor does education. And what was measured was willingness, not what people buy in the shop. This is a survey of intentions, not till receipts.

The three León profiles describe motives, not three separate camps of people. The same person can fall into a different profile on a different evening.

The first motive: company and new habits

People driven by social norms are, in the study, younger than the rest. That matches what British surveys see, although the gap between age groups there is smaller than is often assumed.

In the Drinkaware Monitor 2025 (YouGov, 7,256 adults, June 2025), 50% of drinkers aged 18 to 34 had had a no- or low-alcohol drink in the past year, against 46% of those aged 35 to 54 and 42% of those over 55. That covers all such drinks, not just wine, but the orders of magnitude are telling. The Portman Group survey with YouGov (2,138 adults, November 2025) paints a similar picture: 43% of drinkers aged 18 to 24 have these drinks regularly or now and then, as do 35% of those over 55, up from 25% in that older group in 2022.

Being part of the group does show up as a reason in the British data, but not at the top. According to the Portman Group, the main reason is being able to drive home (35%), with joining in without overdoing it second (24%). In France, in the barometer from Moderato and the Seeds institute (1,000 adults, October 2024), safety also comes first (39%), while keeping non-drinkers company gets 28%.

Martin Foradori Hofstätter, a producer in Alto Adige, told La Repubblica on 28 October much the same thing in his own words: it started with people who had to drive, and now the buyers include wine lovers, sportspeople and calorie counters, so “it’s impossible to define a typical buyer”. That is a producer’s view, not a measurement.

The second motive: light drinkers who read the label

The “health” profile in León is made up of educated people who drink little. We make no claims about their health: noalc.es does not give advice on benefits. But it stands to reason that this buyer looks at the label more closely than most. There they will find the strength, up to 0.5% for alcohol-free wine, plus sugar and calories per 100 ml in the nutrition table. Those figures are printed, and they are a better way to compare bottles than the word on the front label. People are not yet used to reading those words, even where the category has been on the shelf for years: according to a Drinkaware report from October 2025, only 26% of British drinkers can correctly say what “alcohol free” means. We look at how to read that label in a separate article.

This motive turns up in almost every academic study of alcohol-free wine. In a British Food Journal paper on Spain (688 questionnaires, June and July 2025, partly different authors and a different method, cluster analysis), willingness to drink NoLo wine is linked above all to health motives, a habit of drinking alcohol-free drinks and wanting to drink less. On Crete, in a study by Fuentes-Fernández and Mendaña-Cuervo in Wine Economics and Policy, health is present in every combination that leads to a high willingness to try alcohol-free wine. The same study found a profile that does not fit the youth story: older, educated women for whom past experience with these drinks matters more than price.

Surveys of the general population tell a more modest story. According to Drinkaware, 19% of people who drink no- and low-alcohol drinks choose them “for health reasons”, roughly as many as do so to avoid getting too drunk. In the US, according to Dry Atlas (October 2026), buyers of alcohol alternatives put taste first (35%), avoiding a hangover second (31%) and physical health only fourth (26%). The difference most likely lies in the sample: academic surveys in Spain and Italy reach people who know a lot about wine, whereas British and American panels are closer to the population as a whole.

Why people in the UK drink no- and low-alcohol drinks
Bar chart. Reasons for drinking no- or low-alcohol drinks in the UK, Drinkaware Monitor 2025, base 2,673 adults who drink them: needed to drive soon afterwards 34%, curiosity 26%, like that it tastes like an alcoholic drink 24%, would usually drink alcohol but didn’t want to 23%, feels more social than a soft drink 20%, didn’t want to get too drunk 19%, for health reasons 19%, to help cut down on alcohol 18%, commitments next day 15%, to avoid a hangover 14%. Multiple answers, all no/low drinks, not only wine.

The ten reasons most often given by people who had no/low drinks in the last 12 months. Each person could choose more than one. The figures cover all no/low drinks, not only wine.

Source: Drinkaware Monitor 2025, YouGov survey of 7,256 UK adults, June 2025. Base: people who drink no/low alcohol (n = 2,673).

The closer a sample is to wine drinkers, the more weight health carries in it. In surveys of the general population, driving, taste and the occasion come first.

The third motive: price

The price profile in León is a surprise: young people who drink more alcohol than the others. In the British Food Journal paper price is there too, but it merges with fashion into a single “social and trendy” segment. In Spain, then, price sensitivity and an interest in what is new seem to go together.

The more interesting question is at what point price gets in the way. According to Dry Atlas, among people who already buy in the category, price is the main barrier (46%). Among those who know about these drinks but do not drink them, only 16% say they are too expensive. More often they say they would rather have water or a soft drink (38%) or see no point (33%). Drinkaware finds the same in the UK among people who do not drink no/low: 52% prefer ordinary soft drinks, 36% feel no need to cut back and only 12% think the drinks are too expensive.

Why some drinkers don’t choose no- or low-alcohol drinks
Bar chart. Reasons UK drinkers give for not drinking no- or low-alcohol drinks, Drinkaware Monitor 2025, base 2,374: if not drinking, I’d prefer soft drinks 52%, I don’t feel the need to cut back 36%, I’d rather buy conventional alcohol 31%, I think they would taste worse 18%, I enjoy alcohol, which limits the appeal 14%, too expensive 12%. Multiple answers, all no/low drinks, not only wine.

The six answers most often given by UK drinkers who don’t drink no/low. Each person could choose more than one. Price comes sixth.

Source: Drinkaware Monitor 2025, YouGov survey of 7,256 UK adults, June 2025. Base: drinkers who don’t drink no/low alcohol (n = 2,374).

The IWSR, in its 2025 report on no/low wine as reported by Vinetur, adds one more detail: outside the US, shoppers still expect alcohol-free wine to cost less than regular wine. In Italy, a study by Ruggeri and Mazzocchi in Future Foods (636 adults) found that willingness to pay more is higher among people who care about health and about pairing with food. The main worries in the same study are a watery taste and a feeling that it is “not real wine”. And 91.4% of respondents had never tried it.

Price puts off people who already buy, but does little to explain why others have never tried it. What stops the first bottle is doubt about the taste, and about whether it is wine at all.

Where the data disagree

Age. The youth story holds up well in the US: according to Dry Atlas, 33% of Americans aged 21 to 34 had tried an alcohol alternative in the past six months, against 8% of those over 55. According to the IWSR, as reported by Vinetur, 60% of no/low wine buyers across eight key markets are Gen Z or millennials. But for Spain and Japan the IWSR points out the opposite: older buyers dominate there, and in Spain the Gen Z share is not growing, unlike in most markets. At the Californian brand Missing Thorn, the average buyer in 2025 was 45, its founder Stephanie Honig told Wine Spectator. That is one brand’s data, not the market’s.

Giving up, or swapping for the evening. Honig describes her customer like this: not drinking Monday to Thursday, on medication, expecting a baby, taking a month off, or still has to drive home. The British data bear this out: according to Drinkaware, 61% drink no/low only in place of alcohol, and another 23% sometimes instead and sometimes alongside, depending on the situation. In the US, according to Dry Atlas as reported by Vinetur, 93% of buyers of alternatives also drink alcohol.

Habit. According to NielsenIQ data quoted by the Deutsches Weininstitut, the German Wine Institute, 44% more households in Germany bought alcohol-free wine in 2025 than a year earlier, and 65% of those who bought came back for another bottle. In the US, January is still the big month for alcohol-free drinks, but, as Victoria Watters of Dry Atlas pointed out at the Club Soda summit in London, sales do not fall back to their earlier level after the January spike. Experience keeps working after the first purchase, which fits the Crete finding, where past experience turned out to be the strongest condition.

Wine against the whole category. Circana, looking at Europe’s six largest markets (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK) over the 12 months to June 2026, finds that wine sales fell by 1.5% and no/low drinks grew by 7.3%, while 43% of shoppers say they are cutting down on alcohol. But wine is not the leader within that group. In the US, according to Dry Atlas, wine takes up the most shelf space (28% of products), yet comes last of the five subcategories for shopper engagement.

What follows from this

What follows are noalc’s own conclusions, not findings from the studies.

The three profiles are better read as three occasions. A weeknight, a dinner where someone is driving, a month off, a celebration with people who do not drink. Someone who picks a bottle today because of the company may pick one next week because of the price. That is why a shelf built only for Gen Z would miss a large share of buyers in Spain: according to the IWSR, older buyers dominate here.

If you are choosing a bottle, the three most useful things to check on the back label are the word “desalcoholizado” or “parcialmente desalcoholizado” next to the category name, the strength and the per 100 ml table. If the ingredients include glycerol (E-422), water, flavourings or anything else the wine rules do not allow, then legally it is no longer wine but a wine-based drink. Glycerol is not on the list of authorised oenological substances (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/934, Annex I, Part A, Table 2, applicable since 7 December 2019), and alcohol-free wine is subject to the same rules (Commission notice C/2024/694, question 8). Wine-based drinks are not all alike either. Some contain nothing but the dealcoholised wine plus additives authorised for wine (preservatives or stabilisers, for example), glycerol or concentrated grape must, rectified or not. Concentrated must is also allowed in dealcoholised wine itself, which may be sweetened with it (the same Regulation 2019/934, Annex I, Part D), so on its own it does not turn wine into a wine-based drink. Others have added water, sugar, juice or similar. The ingredients list tells you which one you are holding. How the two differ is set out on the page on wine-based drinks.

For anyone deciding what to stock, the data suggest that a discount helps keep people who already buy, but does not bring in the first purchase. What does is a tasting, a clear place on the shelf and a label that makes it plain the product is wine. January, on the American data, is still the best month for a first try, but the buyers to plan for are the ones who come back in February.

A buyer’s motives change from one evening to the next. What keeps them coming back is a taste they know and a label they understand, not a promise of benefits.

The weakest point in this whole area is that nearly all the academic work measures intentions in online surveys, not purchases. The León, Crete and British Food Journal studies also share some of their authors, so their agreement with one another is not yet independent confirmation. Working out who actually puts a bottle in the basket takes till receipts and shelf prices, and for Spain very little of that is publicly available so far. The market figures that are published are in the article on the Spanish market, and who makes these wines is covered in Who makes alcohol-free wine in Spain.

Sources

Photos. Cover: photo by Julia M Cameron, via Pexels (Pexels License); cropped.

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