JP Chenet

The brand was created by Joseph Helfrich of Les Grands Chais de France, one of the largest wine producers in France. Grapes are sourced primarily from the Languedoc region under IGP Pays d'Oc designations, an appellation that gives the winemaking team flexibility across red, white, rosé, and sparkling styles. The signature Joséphine bottle, with its distinctive slanted neck, won the Packaging Oscar in 1991 and remains one of the more recognisable wine bottle shapes on the market. The Jean-Paul Chenet name itself is a fictional construction chosen to sound typically French, a marketing decision made at the brand's founding in 1984 rather than a reference to any real person.

The So Free range removes alcohol through vacuum distillation using a rotating cone column, a low-temperature method that separates alcohol from the finished wine without direct heat or the addition of chemicals. The result is labelled at 0.5% ABV. No aromas are added back after dealcoholisation. The line covers reds, whites, rosés, and sparkling variants, making it one of the more complete AF wine ranges from a single producer at this price point.

Scale is central to J.P. Chenet's identity. The brand's mainstream supermarket presence means the So Free bottles sit alongside the alcoholic range at accessible pricing, positioning them as a first encounter with dealcoholised wine for a broad audience of sober-curious shoppers rather than as a specialist purchase. That reach gives J.P. Chenet So Free a distribution footprint that dedicated AF wine brands operating at smaller volumes take years to build towards.