When alcohol-free wine stops being the alternative

I always love seeing NOUGHTY included in a list of great alcohol-free wines. But this particular one from Ditched the Drink made me smile for another reason.

Its founder Heather Lowe has spent seven years tasting her way through the alcohol-free category, and her latest guide to the best non-alcoholic wines of 2026 is emphatically not sponsored. 

These are simply the bottles she's bought, poured for friends, family and retreat guests, and gone back to again.

And NOUGHTY Sparkling Chardonnay is one of them.

She describes it as:

“One of the first bottles that made me realize alcohol-free could actually be beautiful.”

That's a big deal for me because it takes me right back to why I created NOUGHTY in the first place.

When we launched, alcohol-free wine was still so often treated as a compromise, something you drank because you weren’t drinking, rather than something you actively wanted to put on the table.

I felt there had to be another way.

I wanted to create a wine that happened to be alcohol-free, rather than an “alcohol-free alternative”. Something beautifully made, not unnecessarily sweet, and worthy of the same glassware, food and occasion as any other wine.

What I particularly enjoyed about this piece is seeing just how much the landscape has changed. There are now serious winemakers and brilliant new brands from around the world pushing this category forward. Heather even remarks on the difference between the lonely bottle that once sat on the bottom shelf and the choice available today.

That’s progress.

We’ve never believed that removing alcohol should mean removing the pleasure, ritual or sense of occasion that comes with opening a bottle of wine. If anything, the growth of this category is proving that more and more people feel the same way.

So thank you to Heather and her brilliant platform - Ditched the Drink - for including NOUGHTY among your favourites... and particularly for remembering that first sip.

We’re very happy to have been part of changing the conversation.