Future Château’s wine is considerably below a standard wine at around 13% and more akin to a beer in terms of strength.
The brand is the brainchild of Tom Benn: the former head of growth at Naked Wines and brand builder at Pip & Nut, Freja and Milliways. He launched Future Château in 2025: with a brand crafted from premium grapes using traditional winemaking techniques to deliver the aroma, mouthfeel and structure of the classic bottle – but with two-thirds less alcohol.
The first vintage was launched last year: and helped Benn understand the market for a mid-strength wine.
“Vintage 1 proved the concept: there is demand for wine that tastes great with less alcohol, and customers will pay for quality - they don’t automatically assume less alcohol means cheap,” said Benn.
“It also gave us a very clear roadmap for improvement. At lower alcohol, every imbalance is amplified. You don’t have the cushion that 14% gives you.
“For vintage 2 we refined varietal selection, improved vine management and really nailed the blend which has led to more body, length and complexity on the finish. The improvements are material: in a blind taste test 100% of regular wine drinkers preferred vintage 2 to vintage 1.”
And there were some unexpected surprises.
“With our first vintage, we also learned a lot about brand and customer - I thought pre-launch my base would be young people, but in fact our core demo are successful 40-55 year old women,” said Benn.
The latest funding round was backed by a high-profile syndicate of investors: including Shilen Patel, founder of Diageo Ventures, ex-chairman of Seedlip and current chairman of Lucky Saint and MOTH; Benet Slay, ex-CEO of Carlsberg, ex-MD of Diageo and ex-Director at Seedlip; and Charlie Bowes-Lyon, co-founder of Wild Deodorant.
The investment will help fund Future Château’s second vintage, currently in production, which will include a improved Reserve Blanc and Reserve Rouge, an enhanced Sparkling, and a brand-new Rosé.
