Noughty Built Its Wine-World Credibility Before Retail Was Ever an Option
When Amanda Thomson, Founder and CEO of Thomson & Scott, launched Noughty in 2019, retail wasn’t on the table for a premium adult non-alcoholic wine – there was no category precedent for buyers to point to, no comparable product on a shelf anywhere, and no proof that wine drinkers would choose something non-alcoholic at all. So Amanda built distribution the only way that was available to her – one bar, one restaurant, and one buyer at a time.
Amanda told me she was considered one of the first people in the world to make good non-alcoholic wine that was being sold to wine drinkers. There was no comparable brand to study, no retail category to slot into, and no distributor who had done this before. What there was, instead, was a blank sheet of paper – and a decision about where to start writing on it.
On-Premise Wasn't a Strategy Choice. It Was the Only Channel That Existed.
Amanda came to Noughty from the champagne world, where she had already built and sold a brand. That background shaped her first move: bars, restaurants, events. “My play was always on-premise,” she explained. “I was all about bars, restaurants, arts, events, parties – that was the champagne playbook I knew.”
It wasn’t a calculated sequencing play so much as the only viable path. Retail “wasn’t even on the radar in 2019” for an ANA wine being positioned to wine drinkers rather than non-drinkers. On-premise let her introduce Noughty in settings where a server or sommelier could vouch for it – which mattered, given how steep the category-level education problem was. Amanda described being met with “ridicule, laughter, sometimes people not being polite” as she tried to explain what a good non-alcoholic wine even was. Even now, she says, “people say to me, I don’t even understand what’s a non-alcoholic wine.” The education curve didn’t close after launch – it became a permanent part of the job.
Earning a Place in Rooms That Don't Let Just Anyone In
Once she had a foothold on-premise, Amanda set her sights on something more specific than volume: credibility inside the wine world itself. She told me about the work of getting Noughty into Michelin-starred restaurants, five-star hotels, and spas and wellness venues – and was blunt about the difficulty. “These things are not easy, not easy at all,” she said. “To build that trust in wine is really hard.”
That’s a different kind of distribution problem than most ANA brands face. It’s not just about getting a product on a shelf or a menu – it’s about being accepted into the same prestige tier as the traditional wine and champagne brands she’d spent her career around. Those placements point to something larger than one brand’s success: wine-world gatekeepers – sommeliers, chefs, hoteliers – are willing to evaluate ANA wine on the same terms as anything else they pour, judging it as wine first rather than filing it under substitute or novelty.
Refusing the Existing ANA Wine Market to Build a Different One
Part of what made this path possible is what Amanda chose not to compete for. As she put it to me, legacy non-alcoholic wine already existed on some shelves – but it was built for a different customer entirely, often bought out of necessity rather than preference. “That really wasn’t a data point or market that was even relevant to what I was doing,” she said. “I’m not taking those drinkers… I’m making a quality-driven non-alcoholic wine to have equality with good wine.”
That meant there was no existing retail tier to point to when retail did eventually become viable. Noughty still landed an early, high-profile win: Waitrose in the UK, which Amanda calls “the jewel in the retail crown” of British grocery. A young buyer took the chance early, and Amanda has noticed a pattern since – younger buyers, regardless of gender, tend to be more open to category-defying products, because the modern consumer is “way more flexible” about when and why they reach for something non-alcoholic.
Building Without Paid Acquisition - and Without a Lockout Deal
Two other decisions shaped how Noughty expanded once retail opened up. The first was structural: Amanda avoided signing an exclusive, long-term distribution agreement in the U.S., having watched other brands “crash and burn” once locked into one partner. Instead, she worked market by market, treating American states the way she’d treat individual European countries – distinct audiences requiring distinct strategies, not a single rollout.
The second was about how the brand earned attention at all. Noughty has never paid for likes, engagement, or social reach. “We don’t spend money on Meta,” Amanda said. “All of our online traction has come through community.” That community-first approach – one conversation, one tasting at a time – became more valuable, not less, as the cost of paid acquisition climbed industry-wide for everyone else.
What Noughty's Path Shows About Building ANA Distribution From Nothing
Noughty’s distribution story makes a case for treating credibility-building as infrastructure, not marketing. On-premise wasn’t a clever workaround – it was the only door open in 2019. But the specific credibility Amanda built behind that door, inside Michelin-starred restaurants and five-star hotels, became the foundation everything else was built on top of.
When I asked her how much harder the work has gotten since those early days, she didn’t pretend it’s solved. “Even in 2026, it’s tough,” she said of the education gap that still exists outside the category’s own circles. But the credibility she built early – and protected carefully as the brand grew – has put Noughty in front of some of the most selective gatekeepers in wine, evidence that an ANA brand can earn the same kind of standing traditional wine brands spend decades building.
Marcos Salazar
Marcos Salazar is the CEO of the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
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