The MD of Benchmark Drinks, the company behind Kylie Minogue and Elton John’s namesake wine brands, has urged the wine industry to steer clear of established descriptor cues for brands below a certain price point.
Speaking at The Beverage Forum Europe 2026 in London today, Paul Schaafsma (below), who was CEO of Accolade Wines prior to joining Benchmark in early 2018, drew the line at the UK per-bottle SRP of GBP7.50 (US$9.95). Below this, he argues, consumers are interested less in where a wine has been sourced from or from which grapes it has been produced, and more in its taste profile and occasion adjunct.
“For a long time, the wine industry has had a fixation on region,” Schaafsma said. “The problem is, at under GBP7.50 per bottle, consumers don’t care. They’re not thinking about the same things the winemaker’s thinking about.
“South Africans, for example, love talking about South Africa but it’s hard to build that affinity with the consumer in the UK. They’re trying to get their point across too much without actually thinking about the consumer.”
Schaafsma was speaking on a panel considering ‘the business of building alcohol brands’. As the discussion turned to no- & low-alcohol aspirations, Schaafsma urged caution against the use by brands of the term ‘mid-strength’. “We should avoid it,” he told attendees. “The risk of disappointing the consumer is too great.
“As an industry, we need to learn how to interact with mid-strength drinks in a way that makes the consumer feel comfortable.”
Two weeks ago, Diageo unveiled extensions of its Captain Morgan rum, Gordon’s gin and Smirnoff vodka brands under the banner “mid-strength”. The trio of 20%-ABV extensions, the packaging for which features the colour teal as “an intuitive cue to the new ‘middle ground’ the category represents”, is on sale now in the UK off-premise on a trial basis.
London-based Benchmark has grown in profile since its formation in 2018 through tie-ups with Kylie Minogue – the Kylie Minogue Wines business has sold around 22m bottles since launching in 2020, according to the company’s website – Elton John, with the Elton John Zero 0%-ABV sparkling wine, as well as singer-songwriter Gary Barlow and chef Gordon Ramsay.
