It took 52 years for Leelanau County’s longest-running winery to make a non-alcoholic (NA) wine, but just one year for that product to become a significant piece of the company’s bottom line.

Soft-launched in fall 2024 and released more widely early last year, Safe Sex – the name for the NA sparkling rosé from Mawby Vineyards – accounted for 6 percent of the winery’s total sales in 2025. In celebration of Dry January, the biggest non-drinking campaign in the world, the Leelanau Ticker sat down with Mawby co-owner Mike Laing to learn about the origins, challenges, and performance of the winery’s first NA foray.

The Laing brothers – Mike and his brother Peter – joined Mawby founder Larry Mawby as winery partners back in 2009. At the time, Dry January had yet to be formalized as an international campaign to curb alcohol consumption. Alcohol Change UK introduced the concept in 2012, trademarked it in 2013, and has continued to grow it ever since. According to a 2025 survey, approximately one-third of Americans participated in Dry January last year.

The growth of Dry January has dovetailed with a broader decline in drinking trends. In August, Gallup published a poll showing that only 54 percent of American adults consume alcohol – the lowest percentage in Gallup’s 90-year history.

“It became clear for us that it was time to get into the NA space, and we thought that piggybacking on the popularity of a product we already had – and that already had pretty good brand recognition – was a smart move,” Laing says.

That product was Sex, Mawby’s popular sparkling rosé. Speaking to The Ticker for Mawby’s 50th anniversary in 2023, Laing said the winery had sold “13,000 or 14,000 cases” of Sex in 2022 alone. The Laings liked the idea of an NA version not just because of the popularity of the wine, but also because being able to call it “Safe Sex” offered built-in marketing power.

“The name was just a layup,” Laing laughs.

As it turned out, making a respectable NA take on Sex was harder than choosing the name. Mawby had never made NA wine before, and didn’t even have the equipment to do so. Neither did other wineries in the state of Michigan.

“I hopped on the phone and started calling around, and spent a lot of time trying to find the experts in the NA wine world who could help us,” Laing says. “We found people in Caliornia that had been making NA wine for a long time, and had skills and resources that we didn't have here.”

The equipment Mawby ended up using was closer to home: A Minnesota-based company called ABV Technology makes “The Equalizer,” a low-temperature, low-pressure vacuum filtration system capable of pulling alcohol out of wine, beer, and other beverages.

Even with the right equipment and some expert help, though, Laing’s team struggled to develop an NA wine they liked. The standard alcoholic version of Sex is 11 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), and the alcohol content doesn’t just give you a buzz; it also lends weight, texture, mouthfeel, and other key attributes to the wine. Simply removing it, in other words, doesn’t a drinkable NA wine make.

“We talked a lot about what types of base wine to use, what types of natural flavors to use, how to build body and roundness,” Laing says. “Because when you remove alcohol from wine, it thins it out and highlights the acidity in a pretty in-your-face fashion.”

In September 2024, after dozens of taste trials, Mawby soft-launched Safe Sex in its Suttons Bay tasting room. For many customers, the new wine took some getting used to.

“We had folks fill out a survey, and a lot of people said ‘It doesn't taste like the real Sex,’” Laing tells The Ticker. “Which is fair, because it’s almost impossible to duplicate that taste with the removal of the alcohol.”

Nevertheless, Safe Sex became an instant bestseller, and was one of just five NA wines to win a gold medal at the recent 2026 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Laing is also confident Mawby – and other wineries – will be able to improve their NA offerings in the not-so-distant future.

“The technology for removing alcohol while keeping the integrity of the product the same is improving, so I think these types of products will only improve,” Laing says. “The Germans are leading the way on that front. The best sparkling wines I've had that are not alcoholic are German Rieslings; they just taste so much more like the real thing. And I know that that technology is working its way into this country as we speak, so things are going to improve, and they are going to improve soon.”