Just the other month I gave an extremely favourable review to a de-alcoholised wine from Oddbird, a line of “liberated from alcohol” wines imported by a nascent Ontario company called Clearsips.
As it turns out, Clearsips is the brainchild of an old wine business friend of mine, a smashing fellow called David Thompson of Vintage Trade (a company he now runs in parallel with Clearsips); I used to purchase a fair bit of wine from him back in the day as I really appreciated his palate, Rudi Rabl’s terrific Austrian Kamptal bottlings in particular.
After re-evaluating the role of alcohol in his life, deciding to quit drinking, and spending a few years exploring the possibilities of a non-alcoholic supply business, he founded Clearsips with his wife Margaret, a certified recovery coach.
Objectively, I have found the story of David’s personal/business journey to be an absolutely fascinating one, and hence I present Part One of an extended interview exploring the birth of Clearsips.
In this second segment we talk about the challenges of making non-alcoholic beverages, in particular non-alcoholic wines, and the most recent Canadian recommendations regarding alcohol intake.
You can find Part One of our interview right here.
