Sparkling wine: Echo Falls Spritz

It may be at the opposite end of the sparkling wine scale from champagne, but Constellation Europe is hoping that a new spritzer product can entice less experienced wine consumers into a similar market.

Constellation recently launched Echo Falls Spritz, taking the Californian wine brand's chardonnay and white zinfandel varieties and blending them with sparkling water. Each pre-mixed bottle contains just one unit of alcohol, a big selling point.

Lighter drinking​

The move is aimed at women new to the wine market who want a light, lower ABV drink. Research by Constellation has indicated that women are interested in low-alcohol alternatives to beer, RTDs and spirits with mixers - but that many of them feel intimidated by ordering wine, sparkling or otherwise.

Independently-conducted consumer research estimates that the burgeoning 'lighter drinking' market could be worth £200m to the wine category within five years. Spritz, with its backing by a popular brand, perhaps has the resources to tap into this. Many say the reason spritzers have historically failed to take a hold in the UK market is because no big names have got involved with the format before.

But, does all this risk cheapening the image of wine? It does sound dangerously close to what happened in the Ready-To-Drink market, where spirits categories once regarded as premium had their reputations knocked by their addition to mixers in heavily-branded bottles.

Simon Wright - who, as director of sales, pubs and leisure at Matthew Clark, is close to on-trade accounts, including Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns, that stock Echo Falls Spritz - denies this.

"No apologies are being made for attaching the brand to the success story of sparkling wine," he says. "The real growth is in branded sparklers, rather than champagne per se. If you think about the three elements in wine that are really popular right now - rosé, sparkling and light drinking - Spritz ticks those boxes.

"We have seen people moving into a value-conscious area in sparkling wine. They would rather drink a nice sparkling product than a cheap champagne."

Echo Falls Spritz, he suggests, is for these customers.

Key priorities​

Wright adds that the product is a response to the concerns of pubs about the wine market. "National customers at the moment have a couple of key priorities," he explains. "One is to enhance their wine offering because it is one of the few categories growing.

"The second is to be seen to encourage responsible drinking. Spritz is timely because it is one unit a bottle."

Whatever your views on sparkling wine, this reasoning makes sound sense.

How to serve and promote Spritz

Constellation is urging staff to serve Spritz chilled and over ice, in a branded tall glass.

Simon Wright suggests making sure point of sale material for the brand is in prominent positions, and likewise the product itself. This can be done by stocking it in visible positions in fridges, perhaps replacing RTDs, which Wright says that "we, as a supplier, are seeing falling off a cliff in sales terms".