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When you look at bottles of pét nat at first you might mistake them for craft beer. It’s not just the use of metal crown caps rather than corks. The pop art-inspired illustrations, punky fonts, and playful, punning name on their riotously colourful labels have the same DIY, fanzine aesthetic you find on so many bottles of double dry-hopped IPA.
That at least some of their customers might mistake what is in fact a form of sparkling wine for beer might be the point for some makers of pét nat. They want to signal their difference from other wines, that they’re offering something fun, irreverent, unpredictable. The medium of the bottle is to some extent the message, which annoys some of the more conservative-minded types in the wine trade who dismiss pét nat as nothing more than “hipster bubbles”.
