Asti: the OG LA Wine

Over in Beer World, the NA (non-alcoholic) category is booming. Sales by market leader Athletic Brewing Company continue to grow while more and more other brands introduce NA products. There is a lot of interest in NA here in Wine World, too. The most-read single Wine Economist article of this year so far is an essay on “Non-Alcoholic Wine and the Second-Glass Test.”  However, NA wine remains a niche product compared to NA beer.

More of the Wine World focus is on LA (low-alcohol) wine, which is promoted variously as “light,” low-calorie, “better for you,” and so on. Many new products have been launched to take advantage of interest in LA wines. Some producers seem to think this is a new category, and it may well be to some consumers.

Everything Old is New Again?

We recently received a story pitch for a brand that seemed to think it invented the idea of LA wine. That rubbed the wrong way because low-alcohol wine has a very long history. German Rieslings, for example, have long featured their moderate alcohol (they might have been the first “session” wines). Stella Rosa wines, which have alcohol levels so low that they have to include nutritional data on the labels in addition to the usual alcohol warnings, are very popular and widely distributed. Riunite Lambrusco, once the most popular imported wine in the U.S., is low-alcohol, too.

The wines from Asti — still Moscato d’Asti DOCG  and sparkling Asti DOCG (aka Asti Spumante) — must be included on the list of OG LA wines here in the U.S. market and around the world, too. The abv for Moscato d’Asti DOCG hovers around 4.5 percent, considerably lower than most white wines, and Asti DOCG is a bit higher but still relatively low at 7.5 percent. Residual sugar levels are higher because the wines are not fermented dry, of course, but the best of these highly aromatic wines achieve good balance with higher acidity, although I admit I have sampled a few over the years that were unbalanced on the sweet side for my taste.

The Asti Consortium sent us a sample of each wine and they represented the region very well. Bava Bass Tuba Moscato d’Asti DOCG and Gancia Asti Spumante DOCG  were well-balanced and delicious. We sipped the Gancia Asti sparkler as an aperitif on a warm summer day and the Bava Bass Tuba Moscato d’Asti paired very well with a fresh fruit dessert. We tried  Moscato d’Asti DOCG along with some other wines paired with chocolate last year and were surprised by how well they worked with Chocolate Moonshine French Vanilla Fudge.

Global Interest in OG LA

Who drinks the LA wines of the Asti region? Judging by the ready availability of the wines, I would say that the market is quite large here in the United States. Costco regularly features its own Kirkland Signature brand of Moscato d’Asti, for example, in addition to other labels of this wine.

I asked the Asti Consortium for sales data and the results surprised me a bit. The pie chart above shows 2023 sales for sparkling Asti DOCG. Most is sold in Italy and the rest of Europe but the Russian market is very large, which makes sense because sparkling and sweeter wines are very popular there. In fact, 2023 might have been a particularly good year for Russian sales. The Economist reports that Russian government stimulus helped spending on imported sparkling wine increase by 80 percent that year!  The Americas and Asia take their share of the Asti DOCG pie, tool.

The sales pattern is very different for still Moscato d’Asti DOCG. The U.S. market is by far the most important followed by Italy, Greece, South Korea, and Switzerland. No wonder these wines are so easy to find on U.S. store shelves. U.S. consumers drink about two of every three bottles sold in the world! Amazing.

The sudden surge in attention given to LA wine may be new, but consumers have been enjoying LA wine for a long time. There are lots of new brands and concepts, that’s for sure, but the OG LA wines like Moscato d’Asti DOCG and Asti DOCG endure for a reason.