The wine industry is undergoing a profound transformation, where traditional playbooks are being rewritten and unexpected categories are emerging as growth engines in an otherwise challenging market. These Bar Convent Berlin presentations explore the multifaceted strategies that forward-thinking wine professionals are deploying to thrive amid disruption. From leveraging the power of instant shelf storytelling and navigating the surprising rise of wine alternatives that are outperforming traditional non-alcoholic wines in premium venues, to building profitable private label programs that can weather market volatility.
Sparkling Wine in 2025: Data, Trends & the Rise of Prosecco
In this data-packed Bar Convent Berlin presentation, Dr. Anja Zimmer, Managing Director of A2 Wine & Things, reveals why sparkling wine is the resilient success story in a struggling global wine market. Discover the key categories driving growth, including prosecco, and the consumer shifts redefining the future of bubbles.
The 5-Second Wine Sales Strategy: How to Win the Shelf with Story
Malgorzata Kielak, Founder of Find Your Wine Match, reveals why brilliant wines with big marketing budgets often fail at the final hurdle: the shelf. Discover the “Shelf Story Strategy”, a method to connect with the modern wine consumer in just 5 seconds.
Why Wine Alternatives Are Beating Non-Alcohol Wine
In this forward-thinking presentation, Murray Paterson, Founder of Muri, explores the seismic shift in the non-alcoholic space. Discover why “Wine Alternatives” are captivating sommeliers and challenging the primacy of dealcoholized wine in fine dining.
A Deep Dive Into Private Label Wine Strategy
In this masterclass, Peter Douglas, Founder of Sustaina Wines, provides a clear-eyed blueprint for thriving in a declining wine market. He touches on how a strategic private label wine program can increase margins while building a unique brand.
Sparkling Wine in 2025: Data, Trends & the Rise of Prosecco Transcript
Dr. Anja Zimmer (0:04)
Thank you very much — I have the pleasure of opening this session. Today we’re talking about sparkling wines. I always like to start a talk with a few numbers, because when discussing a category it helps to understand the scale we’re dealing with.
Sparkling wine is a genuine success story in a wine industry that’s struggling with declining consumption across many categories. Global consumption hit more than three billion bottles in 2024, representing a $50 billion market, and the expectation is that it will continue growing moderately in the years ahead.
When we talk about sparkling wine, the largest single category is of course prosecco. Then there’s champagne, which is the only category currently in slight decline. Cava sits on a very steady trend — not due to consumer demand issues, but due to production problems related to drought in the region. Then there’s crémant, which is a real success story, and the biggest success story of all right now is no/low alcohol — which is why I’ve included it. Over the next five or six minutes, we’ll cover prosecco, champagne, crémant, and no/low alcohol. I’ll leave cava out given its production challenges.
Dr. Anja Zimmer (1:46)
Prosecco achieved 7% year-on-year growth last year, with more than 600 million bottles sold. You might wonder: what explains this success? I think one of the main reasons is simplicity. Prosecco is easy to understand, easy to drink, easy to remember — you don’t have to worry about pronunciation — and it’s easy to afford. People love it as a lifestyle category, and the industry has been very good at marketing it.
One example is the campaign last year with Airbnb, where they marketed the prosecco wine tourism region by creating special listings for visitors to explore the best prosecco estates. Then there’s celebrity involvement — Kylie Minogue, for instance, launched a prosecco, which has been good for the category by adding a touch of glamour and bringing in new consumers.
But the single most important driver is the aperitivo and spritz trend. The aperitivo category is growing at around 7.5%, and the spritz is a major part of that. People love it — it’s a beautiful color, it embodies a certain lifestyle, and it’s a genuinely interesting product for bars as well.
The next category is less comfortable right now: champagne. It’s on almost every restaurant and bar menu, but it faces a few real challenges. We’ve seen declines of 9% and 8% in the last two years. Champagne performed very well during the COVID period, but in the current economic climate, people are cutting costs — and champagne has been one of the casualties.
Producers and distributors are working to address this. They’re trying to find a new message. Champagne has traditionally been associated with big occasions and celebrations, but when people aren’t celebrating every day, that positioning becomes limiting. What we’re now seeing is champagne trying to position itself as something more everyday and accessible. Krug partnered with Burning Man, for example. In Germany, champagne brands are doing speed-dating-style tastings. I recently saw a campaign pairing champagne with French fries — “champagne and chips” — something completely different, designed to bring the category closer to everyday consumers.
There are also real opportunities: private labels — Peter will speak about that shortly — and grower champagne. Rather than always featuring the big brands, you can work with smaller grower-producers who offer a more affordable product and a compelling story. It requires a bit more education and effort, but it gives your customers something genuinely different.
Dr. Anja Zimmer (6:10)
Still in France, the next category is crémant — essentially the product that sits between prosecco and champagne. It comes mostly from Alsace, Loire, and increasingly Bordeaux, which is really leaning into crémant as an opportunity amid the ongoing red wine crisis. Crémant achieved remarkable growth of around 5% last year, and the outlook is strong.
Why? In addition to prosecco’s strengths — accessibility, the aperitivo trend — there’s something else at play, which I find really interesting: the “lipstick effect.” What does lipstick have to do with wine? During the financial crisis in 2008, the cosmetics industry discovered that when people stop buying expensive luxury goods, they still want to treat themselves — and they do so through smaller, more affordable luxuries. Estée Lauder’s Leonard Lauder identified that lipstick sales actually rose during the recession, because lipstick gives you a touch of luxury without the high price tag. In the sparkling wine world, crémant plays exactly this role. It’s not as expensive as champagne, but it gives you that feeling of treating yourself. That’s why it has such strong potential on menus, in bars, and with consumers who want something special without a premium price.
Dr. Anja Zimmer (8:10)
And that brings me to the last category, which is really the biggest success story of all: no/low sparkling wine — and specifically sparkling wine without alcohol. It is projected to grow at around 10% per year for the next eight years, and we’re talking about a billion-dollar market, though exact figures are difficult to pin down.
We are living in an era of moderation. People are drinking less — we have “zebra drinking” (sometimes alcohol, sometimes not), Sober October, Dry January, and sustained messaging from health campaigners about the risks of alcohol, even if the scientific evidence isn’t always as definitive as it’s presented. The result is a clear trend toward drinking less, and that’s why the no/low category has the highest growth expectations of any segment going forward. It’s absolutely worth paying attention to.
In terms of marketing, it’s not straightforward. The product is more expensive than its alcoholic equivalent, and consumers don’t always know what it is. But one powerful framing is to think of it as a gateway product — an entry point for people who don’t currently drink wine but might be curious. If you bring someone in through a non-alcoholic sparkling, you open the door to a whole new consumer.
There’s one important lesson from dating that applies here: you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So if you’re positioning no/low as an entry point, quality matters enormously. Don’t cut corners — invest in high-quality products. We’ll hear about one example later from Muri, which is a genuinely excellent product.
Get the quality right and you have real upselling opportunities. Mocktails are also a significant opportunity — 37% of Gen Z in the US say non-alcoholic mocktails are something they actively want. That’s a real marketing opportunity. Our contact details are on the slide — thank you very much.
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The 5-Second Wine Sales Strategy: How to Win the Shelf with Story Transcript
Malgorzata Kielak (0:03)
Today’s presentation is about shelf story strategy — what it is, and how to reach modern wine consumers in just five seconds. But before I start, let me briefly introduce myself.
My name is Małgorzata, and I’m the founder of Find Your Wine Match. I moved into the wine industry five years ago, after over a decade working in strategic business development and program management across various companies. For three years I ran a wine store in the center of Berlin, where I hosted over 200 events with different local communities. I’m also a certified sommelier and a member of the Berliner Wine Trophy jury. Currently, my co-founder and I are launching a wine app — Find Your Wine Match — for multi-bottle wine scanning in augmented reality, connected to a B2B platform called Wine Desk for wineries. The focus is on making wine selection smart and easy, and building a real bridge between consumers and wineries.
While running the store, I realized that people don’t choose wine based on grape varieties or regions — they choose it based on how it makes them feel. That insight led me to develop the shelf story strategy: a smart, emotionally driven way to win the shelf and connect with modern consumers in just five seconds.
But before we understand how to win the shelf, we need to understand why wineries lose it — despite having quality wines and marketing budgets behind them. Distributors often say “the stock doesn’t move.” Wineries invest in packaging, branding, and marketing, but they keep losing at the shelf. Why? It’s not a wine problem — it’s a communication problem. When consumers face a hundred bottles, they freeze. We have only five seconds to catch their attention and signal that this is the bottle they should choose. That’s the whole game.
Malgorzata Kielak (2:15)
Let’s look at beer, because the beer industry cracked the code. 75% of beer drinkers know their go-to brand, while only 30% of wine drinkers can name even a single winery. Beer simplified the choice — light via non-alcoholic or flavored options, premium via craft beer, cheap and social via classic pilsners and lagers — and rebranded the entire category as a lifestyle, a vibe, not just a drink. Each product fits a moment: refreshing after a game, a summer barbecue beer, or a craft option for explorers. This is exactly what wine needs to do to be relatable again.
So who is this modern consumer? Today’s wine drinker is between 28 and 42 years old, urban, curious but not a wine expert. Modern wine drinkers don’t want to study wine — they want to feel smart choosing it. They drink wine based on moment and mood, not so much because of grape varieties or regions. They’re looking for authenticity, wellness, and above all, confidence in making a choice. The label must speak the modern consumer’s language: it needs to be intuitive, story-driven, and simple. Modern consumers choose in seconds, not minutes.
Malgorzata Kielak (3:54)
So what is the shelf story strategy, and how does it work?
When a consumer stands in front of the shelf, there are three stages: they scan, they match, and they explore. During the scan phase, the consumer needs to be hooked — the label has five seconds to say something emotionally clear. During the match phase, the consumer needs to be convinced — they need to immediately understand that this wine is for them. And the consumer will only explore if they’re already interested — at that point they’ll scan a QR code, read the back label, and engage more deeply.
The label is the first touchpoint of trust. Consumers don’t process data — they look for cues, for signals. This is exactly how storytelling transforms a bottle into a memory. A simple phrase like “wine for deep conversations” or “crisp and bright for sunny days” connects emotion with consumption. It’s not marketing fluff — it’s a mental shortcut that builds preference fast.
But the story goes beyond the label. Visibility online — reviews, social media — builds context. Micro-stories on labels build conversion. And sustainability and authenticity — your values — build loyalty. Together, this is how you turn a purchase into a lasting brand connection.
Malgorzata Kielak (5:45)
Let’s try this: what catches your eye first — “Dog 2021” or “Your perfect match for pasta night”? “Your perfect match for pasta night.” Exactly. That’s the power of shelf story. It simplifies the decision.
The beauty of it is that you don’t necessarily have to redesign your label — you just have to change the message. Because at the shelf, it’s not about decoration, it’s about communication. If you want to win the shelf: speak human, simplify, personalize, and tell a story people will remember.
Thank you very much for your attention. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out at the end of the panel — and follow me on social media. Let’s make wine selection easy, simple, and meaningful. Thank you.
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Why Wine Alternatives Are Beating Non-Alcohol Wine Transcript
Murray Paterson (0:03)
I’m Murray, the founder of Muri in Copenhagen. We make mixed-fermentation non-alcoholic blends. Prior to Muri, I worked various jobs — everything from picking apples in the cider industry to, most recently, working for a distillery called Empirical Spirits in Copenhagen. Empirical was an offshoot of Noma, and it’s where a lot of the DNA for Muri actually came from: lots of different fermentation techniques, chef-driven approaches to flavor, and this somewhat wild approach to blending that we’ve applied to Muri drinks.
We’ve been going about five years now — there’s a picture of our bottles on the slide. The category we’re in is called “wine alternatives,” and that’s what I’m going to talk about today. It’s a category that’s disrupting both dealcoholized wine and wine itself.
It’s obvious to everyone that the dealcoholized, non-alcoholic wine sector is growing quickly — we were just hearing how it’s seeing around 10% compound annual growth for the rest of the decade. But some real challenges remain. Particularly in the on-trade, there’s a perception that the dealcoholization process seriously compromises non-alcoholic wine’s integrity. As someone who comes from distilling, I know that when you strip alcohol away from a wine, it really negatively impacts the flavor and texture — and that’s a real problem for sommeliers.
Dealcoholized beer has been doing very well, but dealcoholized wine has struggled to keep up in terms of being perceived as a high-value product. The dealcoholization process simply impacts wine more negatively than it does beer.
Murray Paterson (1:11)
I did some research for this presentation and asked around among customers in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen restaurants right now, 50% of customers are choosing the non-alcoholic program over the wine pairing. But what’s also true is that sommeliers are really struggling with — and in many cases flat-out refusing to pour — dealcoholized wine, citing the negative perception of the dealcoholization process as a key factor. One term many of them used was that dealcoholized wine is “a ghost of its former self.” A lot of the sommeliers I spoke to love wine so much that they simply refuse to pour something that’s been through the dealcoholization process.
This has created a significant opportunity for a different approach — and it’s an opportunity that the new wine alternative category, which Muri is part of, is trying to capitalize on.
A wine alternative is essentially a liquid in a 750ml wine bottle designed to fit the same occasion as wine — intended to be served as an apéritif or at the table, with the same acidity, tannin, weight of flavor, and ability to accompany food.
Wine alternatives are also targeting a new generation of consumer that isn’t necessarily the same audience as dealcoholized wine. Younger drinkers who are moderating haven’t always had the same deeply ingrained relationship with wine. They’re not necessarily looking for a dealcoholized Chardonnay — they’re drawn to boldness, modernity, and design-led brands within this wine alternative category.
A lot of wine alternatives are also moving away from being wine-adjacent. There’s far more exploration of new flavors, and brands aren’t trying to imitate wine so much as come up with something that has the same fundamental qualities — acidity, tannins — that can fulfill the same occasion. Commonly, wine alternatives are built from teas, verjuice, botanicals, and fermentation, with kombucha being a particularly common base.
Murray Paterson (4:55)
Here are a few of the key players — it’s a pretty broad category, spanning from drinks quite close to wine all the way to something like ours, which is completely different and a bit wacky. I’ve broken it into three rough groups, though this is by no means definitive.
At the top end, there are gastronomic companies inspired by restaurant pairing menus and fine dining. Proxies in Canada and Noni in Melbourne are two of the biggest in this space — and then there’s us in Europe. Then there are kombucha makers, some of whom are now calling themselves “pét-nat tea” — they’re really targeting the wine occasion. Amass Brewery in Spain, Unified Ferments in New York, and Bouche right here in Berlin are good examples. And there’s a growing category of sparkling tea, which makes a lot of sense in wine alternatives because tea has tannin and provides structure. A few of the better-known ones are Copenhagen Sparkling Tea and Saicho in the UK.
There are real challenges to this category — it’s new, and a lot of people, including me, still struggle to describe it clearly. Consumer education is tough when you’re trying to communicate a value proposition that isn’t yet well understood. These products are also quite expensive to make, so justifying a price point of €20 a bottle and up requires some work.
All the brands in the category are finding distribution difficult. We’re quite often tagged onto a wine distributor’s portfolio as a token non-alc addition, which isn’t ideal — and wine distributors themselves aren’t having the easiest time right now. While they’re looking to cut SKUs, our category is blooming, and there’s obvious tension there. The alternative is a growing number of specialist non-alc distributors popping up, but they’re so new and nascent that they often don’t yet have the on-trade relationships needed to really drive growth.
A big issue is also the low barriers to entry. Anyone can put anything in a 750ml wine bottle and call it a wine alternative. I actually just saw a wine alternative hit the market where the creator got the recipe from ChatGPT. It’s extremely easy to enter the category, and there are lots of new entrants coming in at low price points. The challenge for the category as a whole is ensuring that every consumer is getting a quality product made with quality ingredients, not something cheap that could harm the category’s reputation.
Murray Paterson (8:02)
I see a huge opportunity for continued disruption — and specifically for disrupting the primacy of wine in the on-trade. In Copenhagen right now, most restaurants are pricing the wine and non-alcoholic pairing menus the same, and actively encouraging guests to move between the two throughout their evening. This non-binary approach to choosing drinks is becoming more and more popular.
I think that will eventually lead to the whole definition of “non-alcoholic” becoming redundant, as people become increasingly comfortable mixing non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks across the same menu. Drinks will ultimately be categorized more on deliciousness than on ABV. I see wine alternatives, sake, sour beers, and Korean makgeolli becoming common on the same pairing menus in Copenhagen restaurants.
In terms of dealcoholized wines versus wine alternatives, I think those two categories will also become increasingly blurred. I’m already seeing winemakers add botanicals, spices, and other ingredients to their dealcoholized wines to try to boost the flavor. And wine alternative makers are looking at using grape-based products — many are already using verjuice, but some are now incorporating dealcoholized wine as a component to make their drinks more interesting.
That’s just my two cents on the category — don’t take my word for it, it’s not backed up by hard data, just my own observation. But please do get in touch. Cheers.
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A Deep Dive Into Private Label Wine Strategy Transcript
Peter Douglas (0:03)
I’m Peter Douglas, founder of Sustainer Wines. We’re an agency, and we always say we go beyond natural wines — we believe in wines that are produced sustainably. Our clients fall into a somewhat unusual segmentation: they tend to be larger accounts rather than very small niche buyers. We work with airlines, cruise ship chandlers, theaters, and hotels, as well as specialist wine distribution channels.
Today we’re going to talk about increasing profitability with your own private label. In the wine market right now, volumes are going down and people are drinking less. But when people drink less, you sell less wine — and the only way to sustain your business is to increase your margin by selling less while increasing the profit per bottle. That was the thinking behind our private label concept. We’ve been working with various clients on private label development for spirits brands and for theaters.
A private label is a great opportunity for anyone who has a point of sale and sells wine. It offers significant advantages for brand and business owners: it increases margins, gives you full control of the brand, and removes you from direct price comparability.
As soon as you launch your label — and we’ll talk about the different styles in a moment — you become the brand owner. That means you control the sales channels, pricing, design, and marketing. Everything positive, you gain. But everything negative, you also inherit. It’s difficult to maintain the right balance between having a successful private label in your store and maintaining the integrity of that label — because you also need to provide genuine added value to your customer. Consumers know when they’re buying a brand that isn’t available anywhere else, and you don’t want them to feel ripped off. It’s a fine line between being an excellent private label and a lesser one.
Private labels also offer the potential to increase margins significantly — we’ll get into specifics shortly. You can realistically aim for around 40% margin on your private label in a specialty store or even a supermarket, rather than being stuck with a low margin driven by price pressure on a commodity brand.
Peter Douglas (2:54)
This is a project we’ve been working on recently, and it illustrates the three types of private labels well. On the far left, you have the standard winery label. If you Google, say, a Champagne from a major producer, you’ll find it available in dozens of shops. Your competitor is selling it too. You’re buying it at a set price, and you’re entirely comparable — you can’t charge more, especially not online, because the consumer will simply buy it elsewhere. They may not care whether they buy from you or your competitor; they just want the brand as cheaply as possible. The moment you bring it into the on-trade and mark it up three or four times, the consumer can instantly look it up online and see exactly how much margin you’ve added.
To avoid this, there are two different types of private labels. First, there’s the co-op label — a cooperative label where both the producer and your brand are featured. As you can see on the slide, the producer is still mentioned, indicating it’s a collaboration between producer and the business selling it. The Wintergarten in Berlin, for example, is one of our clients who is about to launch their own champagne. This gives them new opportunities to promote the Wintergarten brand — consumers can now enjoy both the show at the theater and the champagne they’ve launched together. They build on the trust and premiumization of the producer’s name while also creating new points of sale, new sales channels, different packages, and genuine added value. Added value is something consumers are willing to pay for, rather than purchasing a comparable but undifferentiated champagne.
Then there’s the control label, which is something I discussed with an American distiller earlier — there’s some confusion around the term. In Europe, a control label is one entirely controlled by the brand owner. The producer’s name is either not mentioned at all, or only appears as a small number on the back label. If the producer becomes too expensive, the quality drops, or you simply want to move on for any reason, you can switch producers and keep your brand intact — because you are the brand owner. It gives you full control of the brand and product, without dependence on any one producer’s name or reputation. This is particularly useful for high-volume products where comparability is a concern, because you control the entire message through your own label rather than the producer’s.
Peter Douglas (6:28)
As with everything, there are pros and cons.
On the pros side: you have the potential — and I want to stress it’s a potential — to significantly increase your margins. You take full control of positioning, pricing, and marketing. You’re no longer dependent on a single producer or region. Depending on your marketing, the region becomes less central because the message of your bottle is what matters most. You can switch from one appellation to another, maintain the same quality, the same price, the same shelf presence, and the consumer won’t know. This also creates new ways for consumers to connect with your brand through new channels and formats, and gives them the potential to receive better quality for the price they’re paying.
On the cons side: you require sufficient volume. Typically you need around 6,000 bottles from a winery to launch your own private label, though some producers can work from as little as one pallet. Even if you start small, you still need to be able to sell through the stock — and this usually requires prepayment. You also need sound dry-goods management: ordering sufficient labels, bottles, and so on. There’s also the risk that you don’t sell through your stock completely. Unlike a standard available brand you could sell on to someone else, your private label is your distribution channel — it’s not available anywhere else. You need to plan and deplete stock before the wine ages out.
And you need to be confident in the base liquid. You need to fine-tune it, lock it in, and make sure your partner has enough of it in stock. There’s no point in creating an amazing red wine that performs brilliantly from one tank if you then need a second tank and it’s no longer available. You must communicate, plan, and calculate in advance to manage these challenges effectively. A private label is a long-term investment.
Peter Douglas (9:49)
As I mentioned at the start: people are buying less wine. So with fewer bottles sold, you need to increase your margin — and 40% is the golden middle ground. You’re not being too greedy, and you’re not too low.
If you’re selling a major brand that 20 different companies are also selling online, you might only be achieving 20% margin — and at that point you’re just moving money from one pocket to the other. You can’t even cover your overheads. But if you go for 40% on a well-sourced private label product, you have solid margins while still offering fair value to your customer.
Going above 40% is possible — 45% can be achievable — but 60% margin, while every brand owner’s dream, may no longer be realistic in a wine shop context. It could simply come across as too greedy. Of course, margins work differently in restaurants and other channels, but as a general benchmark for retail: a 40% raw margin on a private label can outperform standard comparable brands, remove you from the pricing treadmill, allow you to expand, and give you full control of the message you send to your customers.
That was the short masterclass on private labels and how they work. I hope you enjoyed it — thank you very much.
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