Amanda Thomson was a successful BBC arts journalist, interviewing the likes of George Clooney and Salman Rushdie, when she decided to leave her job, move to Paris with her husband and two young kids and study for a Diploma in Wine at Le Cordon Bleu school. From the outside, it sounds like an audacious move – why abandon a career that many would envy? Thomson, however, was on a mission. She was fed up with the unpleasant, often unpalatable wine on offer at entertainment events and was convinced there must be an alternative.

Thomson met a champagne producer at a wine-tasting event who talked about the processed sugar generally present in sparkling wines. She was shocked; she’d been brought up on a strict sugar-free, vegetarian diet and yet it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder exactly what, other than grapes, went into the average bottle of wine.

So, in 2016, she set up Thomson & Scott and developed a portfolio of skinny champagne and prosecco. ‘The concept at that point was to create a perfect champagne with minimal sugar and chemicals,’ she says, ‘which can be done if you use the best grapes picked at an optimum time.’

Seven years ago, avoiding sugar was still a nascent fad and Thomson was seen by some as a bit of an unwelcome disrupter. Nevertheless, the skinny fizz was a hit; hardly surprising, given its core demographic. ‘It was an obvious win, but more importantly it gave me a platform to talk about the presence of sugar in wine in a way I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to,’ she explains. ‘The frustration came when there were loads of cheap copycats who completely missed my point about sugar and were using it as a way of selling really crappy, nasty, sugary wine.’ Thomson, however, wasn’t about to give up. ‘I’ve always worked hard to change the industry from within. It’s really shocking that we are still allowed to sell wine with no labelling; I understand that it’s legislatively very difficult because of the different labelling laws in each territory, but it’s a huge challenge for winemakers who want to be transparent. Bad wine is like fast food, except you don’t know what’s in those cheap bottles unless you’re in the industry.’

The more Thomson worked to create a pure wine, the more she edged towards alcohol-free. ‘It wasn’t a eureka moment; I just kept thinking that, whichever way you cut it, alcohol isn’t healthy.’

Two years ago, Thomson launched Noughty (pronounced “naughty”), a collection of low-sugar, alcohol-free wine that is now a leader in its market. After initially releasing sparkling organic chardonnay and sparkling rosé – both are now present in high-end hotels and in premium class on airlines – Noughty Rouge came out in summer 2022. Alcohol-free red wine is notoriously hard to get right; the alcoholic version is a muscular drink with a depth that is hard to recreate for fans of its rich, dark, bitter, sweet or dry flavours. Noughty Rouge, with 100 per cent syrah grapes grown in South Africa, is full bodied and, yes, pretty muscular. It tastes like a pinot noir and is, according to The New York Times, ‘a non-alcoholic red wine worth bringing to the party’.

Davina McCall, meanwhile, was recently seen on social media trying to persuade everyone at an event to taste Noughty. ‘She went nuts for it!’ says Thomson. ‘There are so many celebrities now who don’t drink, some of whom publicise it and some of whom don’t. I think we’ve reached an interesting point where things are starting to shift.’

The global non-alcoholic market is anticipated to reach an estimated $1.6 trillion by 2025, which means that Thomson is at the forefront of a gold rush, despite the cost-of-living crisis. She has, of course, had plenty of interest from investors – typically, those offers were thin on the ground back in 2016 – but despite growing 100 per cent year on year, she isn’t ready to sell yet.

For Thomson it’s about doing everything properly. At the start, when people assumed she was building a kitchen-table business, she reminded herself that she had global plans.

When there weren’t enough businesswomen on leadership panels, she gently reminded men to invite more – she knows that you cannot be what you cannot see. As she says, she’s changing the alcohol business from within, as a major player.

Thomson & Scott’s alcohol-free wine is organic, vegan, low-sugar, halal and, perhaps most impressive of all, B-Corp-certified (in other words, the company is a leader in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy). ‘I want to be the world’s leading alcohol-free wine in a good space. It’s about profit with purpose and treating your staff well. Putting ethics at the heart of our business is challenging, but it’s the right thing to do.’

Thomson is doing the right thing, but thinking big. ‘Our brand has never set out to be sanctimonious; my vision has always been to have a bottle of Noughty on the table wherever there’s fine wine, to give people a choice.’

noughtyaf.com