In Limoux, where French sparkling wine traces some of its earliest roots, a new kind of estate is taking shape. French Bloom — the fast-growing Maison behind some of the world’s most acclaimed alcohol-free sparkling wines — has acquired a 25 hectares vineyard and winery in the Haute Vallée. When the site becomes operational in September 2026, it will become the first estate in the world dedicated exclusively to producing alcohol-free sparkling wine from its own vineyard and winery.
For a young category still defining itself, the move marks a shift: Terroir is entering the non-alcoholic conversation.
Anchoring Alcohol-Free Sparkling in Limoux
Limoux has shaped French Bloom from the beginning. Its elevated terroir, cool nights, and limestone- and clay-rich soils deliver the natural freshness and aromatics that the brand selected for its base wines. Through years of R&D and trial across multiple French regions, the team concluded that the south of France — and Languedoc in general, but Limoux in particular — is the best place to make complex dealcoholized sparkling wines.
“We have always envisioned taking a very terroir-focused approach with French Bloom,” says co-founder and CMO Maggie Frerejean-Taittinger. “We see ourselves first and foremost as winemakers. It was a very natural next step for us to be able to anchor our roots into our own terroir. We’re even more convinced now that Limoux is the perfect place to make complex non-alcoholic sparkling wines.”
Limoux’s Mediterranean climate, cooler nights, higher precipitation, and relatively high proportion of organic vineyards — along with a local culture that has embraced natural, orange, and biodynamic wines — reinforce that choice. For French Bloom, acquiring land here is not just about securing grapes; it’s about rooting alcohol-free sparkling wine in a region with both historic sparkling credentials and a forward-looking mindset.
“Since the creation of French Bloom, our ambition has been clear: To elevate the category with precision and high standards, and to champion excellent French sparkling wines rooted in terroir and provenance,” Maggie adds. “This commitment reinforces that dynamic.”
Rewriting the Non-Alcoholic Playbook
French Bloom’s story started far from the vineyards of Limoux. In 2019, while pregnant with twins, Maggie found herself excluded from the wine experiences that had defined her work at the Michelin Guide. The non-alcoholic options on the market lacked complexity, depth, and what she describes as three-dimensionality. She drew up a demanding brief: 0.0% alcohol, organic, no sulfites, no added sugar or preservatives — and a wine that could sit comfortably on the same table as Champagne.
Early experiments revealed how difficult that would be to achieve. The team dealcoholized wines from Burgundy, Loire, Champagne, and other regions, only to find that even excellent wines emerged hollow once the alcohol was removed, with up to 60% of aromatic compounds being stripped away in the process. That reality has historically pushed many non-alcoholic wines toward sugar and flavorings to rebuild the profile.
French Bloom chose another route. Rather than starting with finished wines and then removing alcohol, the team began designing base wines specifically for dealcoholization. Working in Limoux and the broader Languedoc, they harvest earlier than is typical in the region to preserve acidity. They work with organic Chardonnay and Pinot Noir according to their own technical specifications, outside the local AOC, so they can adapt farming and picking to the demands of alcohol removal.
The base wines are built with amplified structure, often through extended aging in new Burgundy barrels, so they will retain length, texture, and character after dealcoholization. Then the wines are dealcoholized at low temperature. The core cuvées, Le Blanc and Le Rosé, are rebalanced with organic lemon and grape must, while the prestige wines, L’Extra Brut and La Cuvée Vintage, are left entirely dry.
For CEO Rodolphe Frerejean-Taittinger, whose background spans Champagne and Cognac, the estate is the natural extension of this technical evolution. “This acquisition is a big step for us. It gives us the means to go much further in bringing real terroir into alcohol-free wines with true complexity,” he says. “At first, our work was about rethinking the know-how. Today, it’s about giving our wines a sense of origin and identity. Over time, we want to move toward a parcellaire approach, where each expression reflects a specific part of the vineyard. For us, that’s the next frontier: When alcohol-free sparkling can genuinely speak about terroir.”
Designing a Winery for Non-Alcoholic Sparkling
The new domaine is not a ground-up build, but it is being comprehensively transformed. French Bloom has assembled approximately 25 hectares of land, including existing winery structures that are now being gutted and rebuilt to suit the company’s needs. All the walls are coming down, Maggie says, as the brand installs its own winemaking equipment and reshapes the property into a site tailored to its method.
The estate will allow French Bloom to control every stage of production on-site: Growing grapes with an eye toward early harvest, crafting and aging base wines in barrel, running R&D trials, and dealcoholizing under the brand’s own roof. The winery is surrounded by its vines, which will enable hospitality experiences that unfold within the landscape. Maggie describes the vision as a blend of innovation, French savoir-faire, and naturality — an estate that shows how traditional winemaking and cutting-edge dealcoholization can coexist.
Importantly, French Bloom has no plans to produce still wines. The company is positioning itself as a pure player in non-alcoholic sparkling, focused on deepening complexity rather than diversifying into other categories.
The estate will also add a hospitality dimension to French Bloom’s business, though that portion will come online in phases. The first phase, beginning with the 2026 harvest, will focus on winemaking and production, with hospitality reserved for private groups, top clients, and the press. Tasting rooms will allow guests to experience the wines on-site and, in some cases, to taste the base wines before they are dealcoholized — a level of transparency rare in the non-alcoholic space.
Over time, the team plans to build out a broader visitor experience on additional land, evolving the domaine into a place where people can see vines, cellar work, and dealcoholization in context. Maggie also envisions the winery and its on-site laboratory as a center for advancing research in alcohol-free sparkling wine. She describes it as a place to “really write what’s possible in the non-alcoholic wine space.”
The estate investment comes at a time when non-alcoholic wine is shifting from trend to structural change. More than half of Americans say they plan to reduce their alcohol consumption in 2025, and global forecasts suggest the non-alcoholic market will surpass $30 billion by 2030. Much of that growth is driven by “flexi-drinkers” — consumers who enjoy both alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks at different occasions.
French Bloom estimates that about 80% of its customers still drink alcohol; they are moderating, not abstaining. The brand’s audience skews around 70% women, ages 25 to 45, and online channels are an important part of the mix, with direct-to-consumer sales accounting for roughly 20 to 25% of global revenue.
Building a Luxury Wine Brand Without Alcohol
From the start, French Bloom was positioned as a luxury sparkling wine brand that happens to be 0.0% ABV. After several years of R&D, the brand launched in late 2021 at Le Bon Marché’s La Grande Épicerie in Paris, selling approximately 10,000 bottles in its first three months. A subsequent rollout at Selfridges in London produced similar results, with French Bloom quickly becoming one of the retailer’s top-performer wines.
Today, French Bloom is present in more than 500 Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide, as well as five-star and palace hotels where its pricing often sits at around 80% of the house Champagne by the glass. In the U.S., Le Blanc and Le Rosé retail at roughly $39 and $44 per bottle, respectively, reinforcing a premium position rather than a discounted alternative.
The prestige range pushes even further into fine-wine territory. L’Extra Brut is an organic Blanc de Blancs with zero added sugar and effectively a single calorie per glass, crafted for gastronomic pairing. La Cuvée Vintage 2022, also a Blanc de Blancs, is made from Chardonnay aged about eight months in new Burgundy barrels. Only 17,000 bottles were produced, and roughly 1,000 remain. It sells at retail for $119.
Cultural partnerships have helped cement the brand’s image: French Bloom has poured at Coachella, Roland Garros, and the James Beard Awards, and serves as the first non-alcoholic sparkling wine partner for Formula 1 in a decade-long collaboration. In 2024, Moët Hennessy took a minority stake — its first investment in an alcohol-free brand — further validating both the segment and French Bloom’s approach.
French Bloom produced 500,000 bottles in 2024 and so far has seen three- to four-fold growth year over year. The Limoux estate is designed to support that trajectory while allowing the brand to tighten its focus on terroir and technical refinement.
What the Limoux Estate Unlocks
In the restaurant world, the estate acquisition coincides with a broader shift toward serious non-alcoholic pairings. “Ingredients and provenance guide everything we do,” says Fredrik Berzelius, chef-owner of Aska, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Brooklyn. “French Bloom gets that, which is why their cuvées have been part of our pairings for years at Aska. Their new domaine brings real terroir and identity to non-alcoholic wine — something the category has needed. It’s a step I’m genuinely excited to support.”
For sommeliers, the appeal lies in a non-alcoholic option that can mirror the structure and origin story of the rest of the list. French Bloom often appears alongside Champagne by the glass and in tasting menus, sometimes in “moderate” pairings that mix alcoholic and alcohol-free wines course by course.
Owning land in Limoux allows French Bloom to control farming, harvest dates, and base-wine structure in ways that simply aren’t possible when relying on contract growers. It also sets the stage for the parcellaire vision that Rodolphe outlined: Distinct cuvées tied to specific plots, giving alcohol-free sparkling wine the kind of place-based identity long associated with traditional appellation wines.
“Just as Cognac belongs to Cognac, or Burgundy to Burgundy, we see Limoux as the place where we can push the boundaries of what complex, alcohol-free French sparkling wine can be,” he says.
French Bloom’s investment in Limoux suggests a potential future in which non-alcoholic sparkling wine is defined not by what it lacks, but by where it comes from. As the brand moves toward parcellaire expressions, expands its on-site winemaking and R&D, and begins welcoming guests into a winery surrounded by its own vines, it is laying the foundation for terroir to play a central role in alcohol-free winemaking. For a category gaining global momentum, the estate signals something larger: Complexity, identity, and provenance are no longer exclusive to traditional wine.