If you were given the choice between your favourite wine and an alternative that provided all the gustatory pleasure but with none of the alcohol, which would you choose? Sadly, for any wine lover who, for whatever reason, can’t or doesn’t drink alcohol, this question has always been hypothetical, since no- and low-alcohol wine has overwhelmingly tended to be, to use a technical term, crap.
The problem, which so far no amount of costly research and development and clever technology has managed to solve, is that alcohol is responsible for bringing so much more than buzz. It contributes to flavour, of course, although not, in the best bottles, in an obviously boozy way. Equally importantly, it’s what helps provide compelling texture, or mouthfeel, and plays a crucial role in a wine developing in the bottle over time. Take away the alcohol and, even if you were somehow able to replicate its mental and physical effects, something would still be missing.
No- and low-alcohol drinks are increasingly popular in a world where abstinence is on the rise, especially, but not exclusively, among younger people, and global wine consumption is in a historic slump. It’s no wonder so many producers continue to strive, like medieval alchemists, to make a no-alcohol wine that can match the real thing in a blind taste test.
They are getting closer. The “world’s first vintage alcohol-free sparkling wine”, French Bloom La Cuvée 2022, launched in March and although its audacious price (£109 at Harrods) is hard to justify for a wine that is, in essence, a generic fizz from the Languedoc, it is impressively fuller textured and much more complex than your average, grape-juicy 0% fizz. So, on the still side of things, is the more reasonably priced Zeno Alcohol-Liberated red and white (£9.99 a bottle, Waitrose).
Both brands seem to have benefited from having been planned as no-alcohol from the get-go, with the grapes grown and harvested in a way that anticipates the effects of industrial de-alcoholisation, rather than simply applying the process to a leftover conventional wine. I’ve no doubt that still-more convincing 0% wines will emerge as the process is refined.
On abstemious days and nights, I still tend to choose drinks that are inspired by wine rather than wine that’s been defanged. These alternative drinks have often been created by producers who have more in common with a mixologist, or even a chef, than a winemaker but their blends of spices, coffee, tea, salt, pepper, vinegar, kombucha and fruit, among other things, offer many of the pleasures of wine without claiming to be the same drink. They are all the better for it.
Six great ‘nolo’ drinks and wines
LA Brewery English Rose Infused Kombucha NV
(£10, Ocado)
Not all, or even most, kombucha is produced as a wine alternative; and you’d never confuse this Suffolk-sourced take on the brewed tea for champagne in a blind tasting. All the same, the gentle floral tones, racy acids and soft bubbles offer many of sparkling wine’s charms minus the alcohol.
Three Spirit Blurred Vines Sharp NV
(£16.99, threespiritdrinks.com)
British brand Three Spirit employed “bartenders and scientists” to create its range of non-alcoholic wine alternatives. I am particularly fond of this invigorating white, a blend of juices, botanicals, vinegars, coconut water and many more that crisply, cleanly exceeds the sum of its multifarious parts.
Saicho Sparkling Tea Darjeeling
(£17.99, saichodrinks.com)
Another sparkling tea-based drink that you would never mistake for wine, but which, thanks to cold-brewing and the delicacy of the single-origin Darjeeling leaves, makes for a brew that satisfies all of an abstemious wine lover’s craving for tannin, complex grapey and floral aromas, and spicy length of flavour.
NON Stewed Cherry & Coffee Alcohol-free Wine Alternative
Australia NV (£21, gnarlyvines.co.uk)
My pick of a range of impressively complex new creations from Melbourne brand NON, this red brew of sour cherries, cold brew coffee, salt, spices and unfermented semillon grape “verjus” has the grip, savouriness, depth of flavour and complexity to work with any food when you’d usually be considering a red wine.
Wednesday’s Domaine Sanguine and Piquant NV
(£25.99 for two 75cl bottles, wednesdaysdomaine.com)
Wednesday’s Domaine’s deliciously convincing alternatives to, respectively, a crunchy, Beaujolais-style, lighter red wine and a fresh, easy-drinking white. Respectively, they take de-alcoholised Spanish tempranillo red, and airén white wines and add “natural flavours and other elements” to fill in the palate.
Botivo Aperitif
(£27.50, botivodrinks.com)
A richly concentrated, 0% abv mix of aged apple cider vinegar, wildflower honey, and a range of herbs and botanicals, this Italian aperitivo can satisfy negroni cravings but, mixed with mineral water, makes for a superbly pithy, tangy, herby stand-in for good orange wine, too.