‘Light’ wine: Good for your waistline or just producers’ bottom line?

Dieters can now have their wine and drink it, guilt-free and minus the hangover. That’s the promise of so-called “light” or low-alcohol, low-calorie wines. But these wines are not considerably lighter (between a quarter and a third fewer calories compared to regular wines) and may actually push people toward drinking more.
There’s a good deal of consumer demand for light wine products. Australia’s Lindeman’s Wines, for instance, has successfully marketed early-harvest wines for consumers seeking a lower-alcohol, lower-kilojoule style drink for five years now.
They’ve had more success than an earlier version of another brand’s light wine, which was produced using de-alcoholising technology. It reportedly didn’t taste very good compared to regular wine.