Wicked Gluten Free Expo · Mohegan Sun Earth Expo Center · February 2026
No Wine Left Behind · Event Report
Missing Thorn
A blind tasting of two non-alcoholic wines, in front of 132 guests.
132
Players
2
Wines Tasted Blind
The Event
The Wicked Gluten Free Expo is an annual celebration of gluten-free, allergen-free, and vegan-friendly products, offering attendees a full day of sampling, shopping, and learning in a safe, family-friendly environment. No Wine Left Behind brought our digital blind-tasting game into the room to put Missing Thorn's two non-alcoholic wines in front of 132 consumers — most of whom had never tried non-alcoholic wine before.
About Us
No Wine Left Behind is a data-driven tasting platform — and a damn good time. We host blind tasting events built around storytelling, discovery, and genuine reaction, which means the consumer insights we deliver to the wine trade are the real deal: unfiltered opinions from real drinkers, captured in the moment through our digital blind-tasting game.
About This Report
What We Asked the Room
Every wine was tasted blind. Here are the four questions we put to 132 real drinkers — and what their answers tell you.
Q1
Would you have guessed this was non-alcoholic?
We asked this right after the first sip. The wines that score high here are the ones that hold up against the most stubborn objection in the category — the suspicion that NA wine doesn't drink like wine. A high score is a brand-defining stat: it means the wine cleared the bar before anyone knew there was a bar to clear.
Q2
What grape
do you think this is?
Players were given two grape options and asked to identify the dominant varietal in each wine, blind. This measures whether the wine actually expresses the grape it's made from — without alcohol carrying the structure or weight. A correct ID rate above chance signals that the dealcoholization preserved the wine's varietal character.
Q3
What flavors
do you taste?
Players selected the flavors they perceived from a list. We compared their guesses to the producer's official tasting notes. A high match rate means the wine drinks the way the producer talks about it — and just as importantly, the way the winemaker intended it to be perceived. A low match rate is also useful: it tells you how the wine is actually landing in the glass, regardless of the label copy.
Q4
Are you more likely to seek out NA wine
now?
After tasting both wines, players were asked this. This is the single most commercially meaningful question in the survey — it captures whether the tasting changed behavior, not just opinion. For a category whose central challenge is convincing consumers to try it at all, this number is the bottom line.
Headline Findings
The standout numbers from the event — what the room did, said, and walked away with.
78%
Couldn't tell it was non-alcoholic
Identical performance across both wines. Players who said "No way!" or "I'm not sure" — the central trust gap of the category, closed in real time.
60%
More likely to seek out NA wine now
After tasting two Missing Thorn wines, 60.2% of players said they'd be more likely to look for non-alcoholic wine. Sampling works for this category — and these wines especially.
55%
Had never tried non-alcoholic wine
A majority of the room was new to the category. The 60% conversion lift was earned against an audience starting from zero — making it a real signal, not a self-selected one.
53%
picked the Bordeaux Blend as their favorite over the Rosé.
A narrow win — the Rosé pulled 47% — but the Bordeaux Blend edged it out as the room's overall favorite. Both wines held nearly half the room each, meaning the lineup has no weak link.
The Wines
Missing Thorn at Wicked Gluten Free Expo
2 wines. 132 players. Every result below is from a fully blind tasting — no labels, no context, just the wine in the glass.
Missing Thorn Non-Alcoholic Rosé
Retail: $19.99
The Story
Missing Thorn was born from a conversation between Aaron Pott and Stephanie Honig about the exploding non-alcoholic beverage trend — and their conviction they could make something far better than what existed. Aaron's résumé runs through Newton, Château Troplong-Mondot in Bordeaux, Beringer, and Quintessa, plus a master's in viticulture from France. The Rosé is whole-cluster pressed, cold settled, fermented in stainless steel — real wine made the traditional way, then dealcoholized using low-temperature vacuum distillation to preserve every aroma and flavor compound the grape can give.
This Rosé held up under blind conditions.
78% of players either said "no way" it was non-alcoholic or weren't sure — and nearly two-thirds correctly identified Barbera as the dominant grape.
"No way!" — couldn't tell it's NA
71 / 132 · 53.8%
"Hmm, I'm not sure"
32 / 132 · 24.2%
"Definitely, yes" — could tell
29 / 132 · 22.0%
What Its Fans Would Pay
Among the 63 players
who picked the Rosé as their favorite, here's what they said they'd pay for it.
<$20
54.5%
$20–30
32.7%
$30–45
3.6%
$45–75
1.8%
Wouldn't buy
7.3%
Players described their favorite wine as Smooth
and Bright.
Top blind flavor guesses (vs. official producer notes):
matches producer's official notes ·
player-perceived notes
62.9%
of players named at least one of Missing Thorn's official flavor notes blind.
The Takeaway
The Missing Thorn Rosé punches above its position. It's the lower-priced wine in the lineup, made from a single grape most drinkers couldn't name on sight — and 47% of the room picked it as their outright favorite. This is a wine that earns shelf space on confidence: low risk to try, high return on reaction. It's the on-ramp to the rest of the portfolio.
Missing Thorn Non-Alcoholic Bordeaux Blend
Retail: $29.99
The Story
The Bordeaux Blend leads with Teroldego and rounds out with the four red Bordeaux grapes — Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot. The wine is fully fermented (primary and malolactic) before alcohol is removed via spinning cone distillation, a low-heat vacuum process that pulls alcohol off in thin films at ~30°C while protecting the volatile aromatics that define a serious red. Aaron and Stephanie don't tie themselves to a single grape or vintage — every release picks the varietals that will deliver the most complete wine without the alcohol's structural support.
The Bordeaux Blend won the room.
53% of players picked it as their favorite over the Rosé in a head-to-head, nearly four out of five couldn't tell it was non-alcoholic, and players named at least one official flavor note 96% of the time.
"No way!" — couldn't tell it's NA
71 / 132 · 53.8%
"Hmm, I'm not sure"
33 / 132 · 25.0%
"Definitely, yes" — could tell
28 / 132 · 21.2%
What Its Fans Would Pay
Among the 69 players
who picked the Bordeaux Blend as their favorite, here's what they said they'd pay for it.
<$20
65.5%
$20–30
25.9%
$30–45
3.4%
$45–75
0.0%
Wouldn't buy
5.2%
Players described their favorite wine as Smooth
and Bright.
Top blind flavor guesses (vs. official producer notes):
matches producer's official notes ·
player-perceived notes
95.5%
of players named at least one of Missing Thorn's official flavor notes blind — the highest match rate in the lineup.
The Takeaway
The Bordeaux Blend reads as the more serious wine, blind. The room correctly priced it higher than the Rosé — meaning they registered the quality tier without seeing the label — and 51% of players failed to identify it as a blend at all, reading the five-grape composition as a single varietal. That's a craftsmanship signal. It's the bottle that proves non-alcoholic wine has range beyond easy whites and pinks: dinner-table reds, dealcoholized, that drink as one expressive whole.
Audience Intelligence
The Room
Two questions about the players themselves — what's driving them toward non-alcoholic wine, and what they still want to understand about it.
Why They'd Buy
Hospitality leads — but quality is a real co-driver, not an afterthought.
"What would be your reason for buying NA wine?" · multi-select · n = 125
66%
To accommodate guests who don't drink alcohol
37%
They're just good
28%
To reduce pressure to drink alcohol at a function
11%
"Psychological experiment with my peers 😈"
Why this matters:"They're just good" outranks "reduce pressure" by 9 points. Players are buying these wines because they liked them — not just because they need an alcohol-free option to keep on hand.
What They Want to Understand
"What makes it wine and not just grape juice?"
"What's your biggest question about non-alcoholic wines?" · n = 121
34%
What makes it wine and not just grape juice?
27%
How do they get the alcohol out?
16%
Are NA wines pregnancy-safe?
16%
Not interested in knowing more
7%
Religious / cultural restrictions
Why this matters:
The #1 question is identity-based, not process-based. Players want to understand what NA wine fundamentally is
— meaning brand education isn't just about explaining dealcoholization, it's about defining the product category itself.
