The Sovio Story

For a small company that set out to do something that its founders thought was pretty simple and in line with everything “good” in the field of “less alcoholic but still delicious” wines, Sovio Wines found itself in an amazing amount of trouble with Britain’s bureaucracy. Here’s the story.

In 2005, Sovio Wines Ltd a British company (originally called DB Wines) was established with the objective of marketing wine with very significantly reduced alcohol to cater to the evidently growing demand in the UK for such products. Consumer research had strongly indicated interest on the part of several million UK wine drinkers (women in particular) in wines offering substantially less alcohol provided there was no sacrifice of aroma and flavour.

A winemaking technology called the Spinning Cone Column, operated by a California-based company named ConeTech in various winegrowing countries, was used to reduce the level of alcohol. The Spinning Cone Column is a vacuum distillation system which, because of very low operating temperature and the extremely brief residence time (approximately twenty seconds) which the wine spends within the distillation column, causes no thermal damage nor discernible change to the wine’s integrity or quality. Consequently, many thousands of conventional wines produced in the New World are routinely adjusted by ConeTech’s Spinning Cone Columns to compensate for excessive levels of alcohol caused largely by the effects of climate change, particularly in warmer growing regions.

Two wines resulted from the original product development process – a Sovio White and a Sovio Rosé, both from Spain. In both cases, the Spanish varietal grapes had been allowed to ripen fully and the resulting wines were produced by classic wine production methods employed in the making of quality wines. Alcohol was reduced to 8% and the product was then brought to the UK where it was lightly aerated by the addition of carbon dioxide to create a lightly sparking product, not to be confused with champagne or cava, having only about half the bubble count of those products.

Extensive consumer testing elicited exceptionally positive reactions to the wine’s aroma and flavour, with virtually no spontaneous reaction to the effect that Sovio was anything other than good wine, and that it was more “refreshing” than most. Positive comments were also made by winewriters. HOWEVER, THE COMPANY RAPIDLY RAN INTO A SERIES OF LEGAL PROBLEMS RELATED TO WHAT SOVIO STILL CHARACTERIZES AS THE DETERMINATION OF A SMALL NUMBER OF BRITISH BUREAUCRATS TO KILL THE SOVIO PRODUCT. The bureaucrats were employed by the Wine Standards Branch of Britain’s powerful Food Standards Agency, and they effectively brought Sovio’s activities to a standstill for virtually a year – partly on grounds of the (wrongly alleged) illegality of Sovio’s production method, and partly because of alleged transgressions in its labelling.

In fact, the company had been fully aware of a potential problem of product labelling since, at 8% alcohol by volume, Sovio did not comply with the definition of standard wine under UK as well as EU regulations. However, there was no existing alternative descriptive terminology which catered for reduced alcohol products, other than descriptions which implied dilution “mixing” with something other than wine. Since Sovio had been created not by dilution nor by mixing but by a purely subtractive process leaving the original wine otherwise unchanged, advice was sought from the Wine Standards Board (WSB) on how Sovio SHOULD be described.

The WSB confirmed that because of its alcohol content of less than 9%, Sovio was not defined as “wine” under the Wine Regulations, and that for enforcement purposes Sovio fell outside the jurisdiction of the WSB and under the jurisdiction of the Trading Standards Service and applicable food labelling regulations – a judgment subsequently confirmed by EU wine authorities in Brussels. As directed by the WSB, Sovio Wines management consulted with the Trading Standards authorities, who confirmed their jurisdiction over the product.

Accordingly, Sovio proceeded with the further development of the labelling in close consultation with Trading Standards, who took the view that it would be misleading to the consumer to use any wording which implied the product was not 100% wine. Trading Standards further proposed that the phrase “semi sparkling wine aerated by addition of carbon dioxide” was a precise descriptor.

Following the brand’s launch in May 2007, distribution was paralyzed on 10th August 2007 by a “Movement Control Notice” imposed without warning by WSB. The Notice contended that the products did not comply with EU regulations because they were allegedly made by “unauthorised winemaking practices” (the Spinning Cone Column) and were wrongly designated as “semi sparkling wine aerated by the addition of carbon dioxide” on the label.

As subsequent events demonstrated, the WSB’s bureaucrats have virtually absolute power under these circumstances and a “Movement Control Notice” allows no effective right of appeal to the victim, nor opportunity to rescue his product while it is still commercially saleable. Supposed recourse to an arbitrator is valueless since the arbitrator is appointed by the WSB without even consultation with the victim.

Contrary to the normal British legal precept that the state must prove the accused to be guilty, in the case of a bureaucratic decision of this kind it is incumbent upon the accused to prove innocence. The process of achieving this is so onerous and lengthy that few attempt it – involving as it did in Sovio’s case an 18 month delay before the company’s only recourse (a petition for “Judicial Review”) by an administrative court judge was heard in the High Court. In its petition, the company sought to recover its costs amounting to nearly £1 million resulting from the confiscation of its inventory and paralysis of its business for one and a half years which had resulted from what Sovio has characterised as the WSB’s high handed and improper actions.

Sovio lost. On 2 March, 2009, a judge acknowledged that Sovio had indeed attempted to “get it right” (i.e. the product labelling) by going to Trading Standards and it had indeed demonstrated having followed the directions of Trading Standards. However, the judge ruled that “one government agency is not bound by the decision of another”. The judge also chose to ignore the issue of whether the WSB had been incorrect in its original primary grounds for confiscation of the Sovio inventory – namely the “unauthorised winemaking practices” used by the company, and which EU Authorities have confirmed is in fact totally authorised for use on products below 9% alcohol. The judge also ignored the fact that, when two government agencies disagree on matters of this kind, there is provision (and indeed obligation) for arbitration by another government body called LACORS with which the WSB had not complied. This had left Sovio caught in the crossfire between the two agencies.

After the verdict, Sovio’s Chairman, Tony Dann, said: “it’s difficult to see what useful purpose has been served by all of this. Or whose interests were protected” by the WSB when they tried to kill our brand and our company, or by a judicial process which supports them. We committed the “terrible” act of creating the first wine ever to have 100% wine character but 40% less alcohol, which is what British consumers, the retail trade, and even government authorities, have been clamouring for, and this has been the consequence.

Nonetheless, Sovio refuses to die. Sovio has now allied itself with a California company, TFC Wines & Spirits Inc., which is also a fervent believer in ConeTech Inc’s technological approach to the reduction of alcohol. TFC has done extensive work of its own on the designing of wines with even lower levels of alcohol but which are indistinguishable in terms of aroma and flavour from their full strength counterparts.

Collaborative work between Sovio and TFC has resulted in a further reduction in Sovio’s alcohol to 5.5%, and in a recent decision by Tesco to give major support to the brand. And the new version of the product, now in a full sized 75cl wine bottle, will be launched in Tesco on May 16. Simultaneously, the same product in a new 25cl version, will be introduced in the on trade.

With staunch continuing support from Trading Standards, Sovio has continued to protest the WSB’s ongoing resistance to labelling the product as exactly what it is – “Partially Dealcoholized Wine”. Trading Standards agrees with Sovio that this is an exact and truthful description. The WSB continues to insist that, although it is generically 100% wine and totally undiluted by anything else, it must be described as a “Wine-Based Drink” – a position which Sovio’s Tony Dann describes as “an affront to common sense”.