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I remember, here in the United States, we used to have "wine coolers" back in the mid to late '80s. Was never much of a drinker myself, and underage back then anyway, so can't say much about the quality, but your "wine drink" remark brought that back to mind. Thanks!

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Wine coolers are just an alternate path to what Europeans call "alcopop", but via the US's oddball tax structure.

It's just cheap but high-ABV wine, cut down with water and flavoring (to something like 5% ABV).

(The other path to roughly the same end product is by taking cheap beer and running it through a charcoal filter, then flavoring the result. Neither process would make sense if you could just sell an ethanol+water mixture without getting a tax break for not having distilled anything to get there.)

Wine coolers also exist in Europe. I don't know whether they are motivated by the same tax concerns.

E.g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Cooler

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