Absence of plonk nearly certain to end in failure (2-3)
I believe the answer is:
no-win
'certain to end in failure' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'absence of plonk nearly' is the wordplay.
'absence of' becomes 'no'.
'plonk' becomes 'wine' (I've seen this before).
'nearly' means to remove the last letter.
'wine' with its final letter taken off is 'win'.
'no'+'win'='NO-WIN'
(Other definitions for no-win that I've seen before include "Certain to end in failure" , "Denoting situation in which success is impossible" .)