"A great alternative". To meet the "dry January challenge" or simply out of curiosity, more and more French people are tempted by non-alcoholic drinks.
In Strasbourg, customers are flocking to the "Cactus de Barnabe", which opened two months ago in the city centre. This non-alcoholic drinks shop is the first of its kind in the Alsatian capital.
Mathilde Paye, 31, came to buy a bottle of alcohol-free wine.
"It's a great alternative for pregnant women. I'm buying it for a friend who's spending the evening with me," explains the young woman. She had already been seduced by a white "whose taste was really close to Sauvignon."
Marie-Louise, 79, is looking for "alcohol-free and sugar-free". After tasting a drink based on a grand cru of white tea "very much appreciated by the family" and a whisky that she "liked less", this time she has set her sights on sparkling wine.
Another client, aged 64, says she avoids alcohol because she is on medication.
The clientele is "very diverse," says Yasmina Khouaidjia, who opened "Le cactus de Barnabe" in October. She offers, among other things, bottles of wine generally sold for between 10 and 30 euros.
"We have young people, older people, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, people who want to 'take a break', people who continue to drink alcohol but are looking for alternative (options), people who are just curious...", she lists.
– Search for alternatives –
This craze for "No/low" (drinks without alcohol or with little alcohol) "was born in the United States about ten years ago, and arrived via Northern Europe, particularly England", says Yasmina Khouaidjia.
According to ISWR, a global provider of data and information on beverages, in 2022 France recorded the strongest increase in new drinkers of non- or low-alcoholic beverages among Western countries (+25%), mainly from the "Millennial" generation (born in the 1980s-1990s).
"It's one of the rare markets around wine that is growing and therefore winemakers are interested in it," notes Frederic Chouquet-Stringer, founder of Zenotheque, which sells alcohol-free wines.
The oldest cooperative winery in France (1895), the Cave de Ribeauville, on the Alsace wine route, took the plunge in 2021 by starting to market two de-alcoholized wines, which contain less than 0.5% of alcohol: a still wine, a blend of organic muscat and sylvaner, and a sparkling wine.
Some 35,000 bottles are sold each year.
"It brought in a different clientele, in addition to the existing clientele, which is not completely immune to this kind of thing," says its general manager David Jaegle.
Frederic Chouquet-Stringer also notes that chefs, "particularly in haute cuisine, are realizing that selling menus for a few hundred euros with six different wines at lunchtime is becoming complicated, that people are careful about what they drink and that consumers expect alternative [proposals]."
– Question your consumption –
"Le Paon qui boit" in Paris, "La Cave parallele" in Nantes, "Karsk Spirits" in Lyon... Around twenty "alcohol-free cellars" now exist throughout France.
In 2024, 28% of French people declared consuming “No/Low” drinks, including 41% of 26-35 year-olds (+5 points compared to 2023), according to the SOWINE barometer.
“After Covid and the lockdowns, a lot of people started to question their alcohol consumption,” according to Yasmina Khouaidjia.
"The MeToo movement has also strongly supported this trend, particularly in France. There are behaviors that women no longer accept, and they are right to do so, and which unfortunately were often induced by excessive alcohol consumption," she adds.
In Strasbourg, Marie Marchal, a 34-year-old bookseller, initially entered the Cactus de Barnabe as a neighbor, “out of curiosity.”
As a result, "I haven't drunk alcohol for a month and a half," she notes, adding: "it's not so bad: you feel better the next day."
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