Non-alcoholic wines today meet with diametrically opposed opinions. It all depends on our perception. For people who love wine, who can enjoy its qualities – the matter is clear – non-alcoholic wines may not exist. Completely different reactions can be found among pregnant women or breastfeeding mothers, people who drive or those who cannot drink wine for health or religious reasons. There is also a growing group of people ideologically rejecting alcohol (just as vegans reject meat).
The fact is that the consumption of non-alcoholic wines is growing. A few years ago, they were practically unavailable (with a few exceptions), and today the assortment is quite large. It is forecast that this year (2025) the non-alcoholic wine market is expected to grow by about 30%. All you have to do is enter the phrase “non-alcoholic wines” into the search engine and you will see many companies importing or offering such products. Usually, non-alcoholic wine is the most normal wine, which undergoes alcoholic fermentation, even malolactic, and is sometimes aged in barrels. Only when the production process is complete – the producer can get rid of alcohol from his wine in several ways (distillation under vacuum, reverse osmosis and spinning cones). There are different methods.
Despite what non-alcoholic wine producers (and their marketing departments) write, claiming that these methods are very effective and the wine stays as it was, only without alcohol – this is not true. Dealcoholization methods interfere with the wine itself. First of all, the lack of alcohol causes a lack of structure and almost completely eliminates the finish. In addition, these wines lose a lot of aromatic fractions. An important element is also the loss of water during the processes of getting rid of alcohol. Especially with the “rotating cones” method, the cavity can be large. This deficiency is most often supplemented with must juice.