With European summer well and truly upon us, many people will no doubt be relaxing with a refreshingly chilled glass of wine. But in France, not everyone will be getting light-headed. Non-alcoholic wine, beer and spirits are a fast-growing market, a surprising trend in a country famous for its wine-growing tradition. FRANCE 24 reports from a Parisian wine cellar with a difference.
Located in Paris's northern 19th arrondissement (district), an up-and-coming area of the French capital, Le Paon Qui Boit ("The Drinking Peacock") was the first bricks-and-mortar boutique specialising in non-alcoholic drinks to open in France. The store is the brainchild of Augustin Laborde, a 35-year-old with a background in law who stopped drinking shortly before France's 2020 Covid lockdown and spotted an opportunity after seeing that many of his friends were also cutting back. He realised that non-alcoholic options were difficult to find in bars, restaurants or supermarkets. "I don't really like buying online as I like going to shops, reading labels, comparing, asking questions," he explained. "And that's when I realised that there was no shop that was really dedicated to the world [of non-alcoholic drinks]. And yet I could see that there was demand, or in any case, my friends were talking about it."
