Within a few days of my posting my prediction that 2026 will be the year when alcohol-free (AF) wine will truly enter the mainstream - and within a few weeks of a British critic and opinion-leader confidently declaring the AF market to be ‘tiny’ - comes the news that Sir Elton John is launching a his own new 0.0 sparkling wine called E. It will be on sale at the Lonon’s fashionable River Cafe and Lilibet’s seafood restaurants - and nationally in Sainsbury’s, one of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains.

Notably, the new fizz is not dealcoholised, but produced using a fermentation method that does not create alcohol. This not only cuts production costs; it also reduces what can otherwise be a sizeable carbon footprint.

First Kylie, then Elton

This is not the first celebrity zero-alcohol wine to hit Britain’s streets. Paul Schaafsma’s Benchmark Drinks, the business behind E, already provided ample proof of concept with Kylie Minogue's highly successful 0.0 Kylie Rosé, and I’d be surprised if another Benchmark celeb, the Irish TV chat show host Graham Norton, doesn’t add an AF to his popular range of New Zealand wines. I also know that a leading British sportswoman is set to launch a 7% ABV, mid-strength wine in another big retail chain.These are only the first of what I expect to be a list of other celebrity-linked Low- and No-Alc products across several markets. As David Furnish, Elton John’s husband and manager, revealed in a major feature in the London Standard newspaper, “People used to put a lot of pressure on you if you didn’t drink”, but that’s far less of an issue now. Furnish explains that “the products themselves have got better”, and “attitudes towards alcohol are shifting, particularly in relation to health.”