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| Our Winery in South Africa. |
A few years ago some people in the wine business started to see that consumers were looking for wines that were lighter in alcohol. This was partly in response to the fact that wine has been creeping up in strength from 11 or 12 % to 14 or sometimes even 15%! Not everybody wants huge powerful wines all the time particularly on occasions such as lunchtime or during the week when there's work next day. What we saw at Cafe Collection was that people were looking for refreshment but were forced to compromise on flavour by adding sparkling water to make spritzers or "making do" with dealcoholised wines that were weak and dilute.
We decided that there must be a way to make a product that had all the flavour that people expect from a regular wine but with less alcohol and, after three years, we think we have done it and consumers in the UK and the rest of Europe seem to agree!
Our winemakers take great care to source ripe full strength wine and then use a range of winery techniques to reduce the alcohol without diluting the flavour. It sounds simple but it took a long time and a lot of work to get it right!
