Better for You Alcohol: UK vs US — Why Britain is Falling Behind
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WINE
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WINE
BEST SELLING WINES
ALL WINE
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SHOP BY WINE TYPE
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SHOP PRE-MIXED CASES
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SHOP BY DIETARY REQUIREMENT
TRACES WINE & SPRITZ
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BEER
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BEER
ALL BEER
LOYALTY
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Walk into a US grocery store and you'll find wine labelled with calorie counts, carbohydrate content, and sugar levels — right on the front label. The 'better for you' alcohol category has been a billion-dollar market in the US for over a decade, driven by consumer demand and forward-thinking legislation that allows brands to communicate directly with health-conscious shoppers.
In the UK, that same information is absent from almost every bottle on the shelf. Not because the data doesn't exist, but because the law doesn't require it. Alcohol is the only major food and drink category explicitly exempt from the nutritional labelling rules that govern everything else you consume.
What the UK is missing
The Alcohol Health Alliance has consistently called for mandatory calorie and nutritional labelling on alcohol. Their research found that only 6% of UK products display sugar content and just 5% provide full nutritional information. The Action on Sugar investigation found that over half of pre-mixed alcoholic drinks examined carried no nutritional data at all.
Meanwhile, in the US, brands like FitVine, Bev, and Kim Crawford's Illuminate range have built significant market share by communicating directly with consumers about what they're drinking — and consumers have rewarded them for it.
What DrinkWell has done about it
Since 2012, DrinkWell has voluntarily published confirmed calorie, sugar, carbohydrate, and ABV data on every product page. We commissioned independent UKAS-accredited laboratory testing of 24 mainstream supermarket wines and published the findings publicly — including the discovery that additive-laden commercial wines contain up to 25% more calories than their declared sugar content implies.
We believe the UK consumer deserves the same transparency as their US counterpart. Until legislation catches up, we'll continue to operate as if it already has.