Luke Hemsley - Wednesday's Domaine

Building a challenger brand is one thing. Building one in a category that consumers are still learning how to navigate is another. For Luke Hemsley, Founder of Wednesday’s Domaine, the opportunity started with a simple tension: people still want the enjoyment and ritual of wine, but increasingly want to drink less. Since launching in 2022, Wednesday’s Domaine has grown from an alcohol-free wine brand into a broader no- and low-alcohol proposition, including wines at 6.5% ABV. In this conversation, Luke shares what he has learned about solving genuine consumer problems, competing with established players, building a new category, and why sustainable growth depends on getting brand, product and distribution working together.

Start with a Problem Worth Solving

The idea for Wednesday’s Domaine came partly from Luke’s own experience. During the pandemic, he became increasingly interested in drinking less without giving up the occasions and rituals associated with alcohol. Beer and spirits already offered plenty of convincing alcohol-free alternatives. Wine was different. Products were difficult to find, often heavily positioned around abstinence, and, most importantly, rarely delivered the drinking experience he was looking for.

That became the starting point for the business: create wine for people who still enjoy drinking but sometimes want to drink less. Wednesday’s Domaine initially focused on 0% wine before expanding into a 6.5% range. For Luke, the broader lesson is that successful businesses need to begin with a problem consumers care enough about to solve. “It’s down to your confidence that the problem you’re seeking to solve is big enough and the pain severe enough that people will be looking for a solution.”

The opportunity was also helped by the nature of the wine industry itself. While many categories constantly chase new formats and propositions, Luke saw an industry where established players had traditionally been more comfortable protecting what already worked. “Most of the wine industry thrives on tradition rather than innovation,” he says. That created room for a smaller challenger to approach the category differently, both through the product and the way it was presented.

“It’s down to your confidence that the problem you’re seeking to solve is big enough and the pain severe enough that people will be looking for a solution.”

Win where the Big Players Cannot

Luke thinks about consumer businesses through three fundamental pillars: product, brand and distribution. For smaller challengers, the third is usually the hardest. Large FMCG businesses already have established retailer relationships, broad portfolios and significant commercial influence. Trying to beat them purely on physical availability is rarely realistic.

The opportunity is therefore to outperform where size can sometimes become a constraint. “You can build a brand in a way that connects with people and you can speak in language that large corporates and much bigger businesses struggle to,” Luke explains.

Smaller brands can move faster, take risks on propositions that might never survive a large corporate innovation process, and build more direct relationships with their customers.

For Wednesday’s Domaine, direct-to-consumer played an important role in creating those early relationships and generating demand.

But as the business grows, distribution has to catch up with awareness. Wednesday’s Domaine has expanded through independents, hospitality and retailers, including Ocado and Laithwaites in the UK and more than 500 Albert Heijn stores in the Netherlands. Luke sees wider physical availability as an important prerequisite before significantly increasing mass-media investment. “Your distribution needs to match what you’re trying to do,” he says, “so people say, ‘I’ve seen that, I can now go and get it.’”

“Your distribution needs to match what you’re trying to do… so people say, ‘I’ve seen that, I can now go and get it.'”

Sometimes you have to Build the Category too

The challenge becomes more complicated when consumers are not yet accustomed to shopping the category. Alcohol-free wine has become increasingly visible, but low-alcohol wine remains much harder to discover. Unlike beer in markets where mid-strength options have a clearly understood role, British supermarkets generally do not have an established place for wines at around 6.5% ABV. Consumers may therefore be interested in the proposition without knowing where to find it.

That changes the path to purchase. Wednesday’s Domaine’s 0% range benefited from online and at-home discovery, particularly as consumers were reluctant to risk ordering an unfamiliar alcohol-free bottle in a restaurant. With the 6.5% range, Luke sees greater potential in the on-trade. Trials with pubs allow people to order a glass, experience the product with relatively little risk, and subsequently seek it out elsewhere. Sampling and partnerships, from hospitality to events, therefore become important tools for creating familiarity.

Retailers are equally important to unlocking the category. Yet this creates a familiar chicken-and-egg problem: retailers want evidence of demand before allocating space, while brands need visibility and availability to generate that demand. Luke believes this is where insight needs to look beyond historical sales alone. Signals such as growth in alcohol-free wine, declining average ABVs and developments in beer and spirits can collectively point towards an opportunity that is not yet fully visible in existing category data. “You’re trying to convince very data-driven people of something in the absence of any data,” he says. For emerging categories, understanding future demand can therefore require triangulating multiple signals rather than simply extrapolating the past.

There is no Single Path to Purchase

Wednesday’s Domaine’s journey also shows why growth channels need to evolve with a brand. Direct-to-consumer was particularly valuable at the beginning because it allowed the business to reach interested consumers without waiting for large-scale retail distribution. It also gave Luke something larger companies often struggle to create: a close and direct relationship with the people buying the product.

As the brand scales, however, the channel mix is changing. Growth increasingly needs to come through hospitality and retail, where more consumers can discover the wines naturally. The right route depends not only on the brand’s maturity, but also on the proposition itself. What works for a 0% wine does not necessarily work for a 6.5% wine, even when both sit under the same brand.

That principle also shapes Wednesday’s Domaine’s marketing. Social media remains its main advertising channel, alongside sampling, trade marketing and partnerships ranging from gallery openings to New Balance at the London Marathon. Broader advertising will become more relevant as distribution expands. Rather than treating reach as an objective in isolation, Luke wants marketing investment to work in tandem with consumers’ ability to act on it.

Grow Sustainably - and Distinctively

For Luke, growth is not simply about maximising sales as quickly as possible. Consumer brands are expensive businesses to build: inventory requires cash, retailers can have long payment terms and scaling distribution creates new working-capital demands. Having previously worked with growing businesses in fintech, he saw firsthand how often cash flow, rather than the quality of an idea, determines whether a company survives.

That experience has shaped Wednesday’s Domaine’s approach. The company is currently prioritising sustainable growth with an eye on profitability rather than pursuing scale at any cost. Luke believes there is a danger in getting caught between two models: neither raising enough capital to grow explosively nor building a sufficiently sustainable business. For Wednesday’s Domaine, the decision is increasingly to build patiently around the belief that the no- and low-alcohol category will continue to develop.

But sustainability alone does not create a memorable brand. Luke increasingly sees distinctiveness as one of the most important ingredients of long-term growth. Competitors will eventually identify the same consumer need, particularly if the opportunity is meaningful enough. The challenge is therefore to create a solution that feels recognisably yours. For Wednesday’s Domaine, that comes from the combination of the liquid, illustration, identity, tone of voice and the places and experiences where the brand shows up.

It is a notable conclusion from someone who admits he once questioned how much brand really mattered. Today, his view is very different. Once a product reaches the level of quality consumers expect, differentiation increasingly comes from the associations surrounding it. “It all comes down to how you make people feel and what you evoke in them.”

For challenger brands, that may ultimately be the most defensible advantage of all: not simply solving a problem before bigger competitors do, but creating a product and brand experience distinctive enough that consumers remember who solved it.

“It all comes down to how you make people feel and what you evoke in them.”