Lucy Isles and Kim Wilson in conversation with Chris Davies – Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford.
Part of an ongoing series exploring the making and meaning of Sablière.
Chris:
So if Sablière is new – something that hasn’t been created like this before – how do you even refer to it? Did you feel you had to name it before people could understand it?
Kim:
We did.
But not to label it – to anchor it.
Because when something is genuinely new, language doesn’t quite hold. And if we’d borrowed existing terms, we would have misrepresented what we’d built.
We weren’t trying to replicate champagne. We were studying it – its structure, its tension, its architecture – and then stepping away from it. Not grapes. Not alcohol. Composition. Balance. Length. Precision.
That naturally led us to a French-derived framework. Because the grammar of fine wine still holds – even when the materials don’t.
So our expressions will evolve in that direction. Not imitation – interpretation.
Cuvée Sablé was the moment it clicked. It came to us when we were explaining the process to sommeliers.
Because cuvée speaks to composition. A deliberate blend.
And sablé – for us – speaks to origin. Starting from the ground up. From zero. Building, rather than stripping away. Which is exactly what this is.
A composition of carefully selected raw materials, transformed with intent – towards structure, balance, and length.
On its own terms.
Chris:
It’s a beautiful name – but it’s also a bold thing to do. Did you hesitate?
Lucy:
Of course.
Naming something carries risk. You can sound like you’re reaching – very quickly.
But the greater risk was being misunderstood.
If we called it alcohol-free wine, people would taste it through memory. If we called it sparkling tea, they’d miss the ambition. If we called it champagne, we’d be lying.
So we needed a name that created space.
Existing terms didn’t apply.
They would have reduced what we’d built.
This wasn’t invention for its own sake.
It was simply the most accurate way to describe it.
Chris:
And once you’d made that leap… how wild did the reality of making it become?
Kim:
Long hours. Late nights. And a few explosions along the way.
When no alcohol is present, you’re not just missing ethanol. You’re missing viscosity, stability, texture, flavour transmission – the system that holds everything together.
The bubbles were one of the hardest aspects to crack – and such a defining part of the experience.
A tight string. Fine, persistent.
We’ve had explosions in the lab getting there. More than once. But it was worth it.
It had to be right
Chris:
And the ingredients – where did those come from?
Lucy:
Before Kim was my co-founder, she was my consultant recipe developer.
I laid out the vision, and set what we now refer to as the House Standard:
Is it natural?
Is it elevated?
Is it enduring?
It narrowed the R&D pathways significantly.
But the route to these ingredients wasn’t linear.
Kim:
From the beginning, the House was shaped by many disciplines.
We worked with winemakers, tea specialists, fermentation experts – people approaching the problem from very different angles.
We started with structure, not substitution.
We studied the sensory profile of great champagne styles with experts around the world.
Not to replicate – to decode.
Acidity. Aromatic lift. Texture. Persistence. Balance.
Then we rebuilt from first principles.
What ingredients and processes could deliver those qualities without alcohol?
That leads you somewhere very different.
We drew on winemaking, distillation, and brewing – but reconfigured them.
Not as disciplines to follow, but as systems to re-engineer.
Tea was always part of it – for aromatic complexity, if handled precisely.
Apples came through conversations around fermentation substrates – introducing oxygen rather than removing it.
Yeast behave differently. You generate flavour without generating alcohol.
Honey followed – but as a distillate, to introduce aroma without weight.
And verjuice came later, but became foundational.
It brings tension in a way that felt both technically precise and philosophically consistent – a by-product of winemaking, reimagined within a circular system.
Chris:
And when did 0.0% become non-negotiable?
Kim:
We started at 0.5%.
But we pivoted early to 0.0%, which forced us to rethink everything.
It’s much harder to engineer a product at that level without compromising structure.
But it pushed us toward a cleaner, more coherent system.
Chris:
And that matters because…?
Lucy:
It changed what the product could be – and who it could be for.
No one should have to step out of the ritual to stay true to themselves.
From the beginning, we wanted Sablière to belong in the same moments, across very different lives – shaped by lifestyle, by personal choice, by religion, or simply by circumstance.
Designing at 0.0% removed that boundary.
Wherever the moment is, and whoever is present, the experience remains shared.
Chris:
How long from the start of development to the final prototype?
Lucy:
Nearly two years.
Kim:
And much of that time was spent in uncomfortable territory.
The early stages were unpolished – oxygen cylinders in a garage, improvised systems, constant iteration.
That was the price of not following an existing path.
Lucy:
And not following a path required a great deal of risk – and belief.
Along the way, many people told us it couldn’t be done.
More often, they simply didn’t take it seriously.
We chose not to engage with that.
I have deep admiration for Kim’s ability to block out the noise and continue. That discipline is rare.
Chris:
Kim, you’ve worked across very different environments – and with some of the most recognised brands in the category.
You’ve created liquids for names like Seedlip.
What’s different here at Sablière?
How is it breaking from industry norms?
Kim:
It starts with freedom.
The thing that drew me to Lucy – and to the vision – was that nothing was fixed at the outset. Everything was open to be interpreted, tested, rebuilt.
We weren’t working to a brief. We were working toward a possibility.
And that changes how you show up.
I’ve spent over a decade developing beverages for other people – often work I’m proud of. But it’s always shaped by constraint: timelines, cost, production realities.
Here, we had the space to go deeper.
To take everything I’ve learned – every instinct, every pattern – and apply it without compromise.
And we kept it in-house.
Because it means the thinking and the making stay connected.
You’re not handing something over and hoping the intent holds.
You’re shaping it – continuously.
Over time, that compounds.
Two years of focused, uninterrupted development – held closely – is rare in this category.
In wine, you have makers who spend decades refining their craft – shaping not just the liquid, but the philosophy behind it.
That level of authorship is often missing here.
We chose to build with it.