“They don’t drink to get drunk.”
Sharing a bottle of FOY Chardonnay, Caroline Stelte, founder of the dealcoholized wine brand, opened up about her year in Italy and the season of her life that ultimately led to her launching.
I’ve been sober since January of 2023, but I'm just sober because of choice,” she shared. “I used to live in Italy, and I fell in love with the drinking culture there. They drink for occasion, with intention. So I adopted that mindset when I moved back to the states.”
The FOY brand is the perfect amalgamation of Stelte’s life experiences. She got her first taste of entrepreneurship growing up on a property used as a wedding venue, and having been bitten by the Boss-Girl bug, she opted for the University of Life, which led her to living in Italy. Taking her world by the reins as a professional photographer, she later found success working with brands as a ‘dog-mom’ content creator and serendipitously assimilated into sobriety via a wellness challenge.
“In January 2023, I did the 75 Hard Challenge,” she explained. “You don’t drink on that challenge, and that was easy for me, but when I stopped drinking, I tried a lot of NA wines or beers. I thought, ‘Wait, this is not good. Why?’ The high calorie count and sugar pushed me into wanting to do my own.”
Prior to this challenge, Stelte had celebrated her 21st birthday with family in Healdsburg, Northern California where she met Daisy Damskey with Palmeri Wines. “When I reached out later asking if she would be interested in helping me create a non-alcoholic wine, she said she and her husband are retired but her son, Drew, might be interested.”
To Stelte’s surprise, Drew did not possess the snobbery commonly associated with purist winemakers. “I’m gen-z, and we’re on track to be the most sober generation, so it was refreshing to hear that he agreed with me on the need for NA options,” she said. “Drew had to teach me how to describe what I wanted. I don’t like sweet things, so he chose to go with a Chardonnay, but the plan is to do a bunch of varietals in bottle and can versions.”
Stelte and Damskey set out to create an NA wine product that, not only tasted great, but also low in calories and allowed consumers to enjoy the same rituals they know and love about socializing and wine culture, like de-corking the bottle. "You want to enjoy a glass of wine, but don’t want to be hungover, you’re going to drink FOY."
"It’s not about shaming alcohol," she explains. "It’s about balance. There’s a new term called 'zebra striping.' That was Drew's goal: To have a regular bottle of wine and a bottle of FOY on the table, and interchange it."