Why the Lack of Low-Alcohol Wines?

There's a segment of the consumer base that wants low-sugar, low-carb, low- or non-alcohol adult beverages. You know, like hard seltzer. There are plenty of lite beers and a few zero alcohol ones. There is even low- and no-alcohol booze. I won't vouch for the taste of any of these when compared to their full strength offerings, but generally you can expect less flavor. But no- or low-alcohol wines? Few and far between.

First, session (lower alc) beer
Now session wine

Wine is a bit of a problem. It starts on the vine with ripe, sugary grapes. That sugar gets fermented into alcohol. So, less sugar fermented the less alcohol. You could do this by not converting all of the sugar to alcohol and be left with a sweet drink like a late harvest wine. You could pick under-ripe grapes that are out of balance with high tannins and acids. So the latter doesn't work; the former only for dessert wines. 

There are processes the wine can be put through to remove some or all of the alcohol. Will the wine taste the same after using any of these methods? Nope. Will it be any good? That's up to you to decide.

Alcohol does several things in a wine. It adds a perceived sweetness. It can add heat (a negative). Alcohol also adds viscosity or weight so lower alcohol wines seem thin; more like drinking water.

So you have to be ready to accept a different taste and other characteristics. That's the same idea with organic wine as there's a reason certain things get added to wine or are using to process wine that don't qualify as organic. You have to want wine badly enough. Maybe that's why people buy vegan hot dogs. I never quite figured out that one either.

Non-alcohol wines are a tiny piece of the market and gets a tiny percentage of the marketing. Those hyping these beverages see significant growth in the next few years, but I've heard this before. We'll see.