Alcohol-Free Wine Is Having It's Moment

Are you curious about non-alcoholic wine but skeptical of the taste, mouthfeel, and overall quality? Wondering why alcohol-free wines seem pricier and how they compare to traditional wines? 

This episode of Everyday Sommelier dives deep into the world of low- and no-alcohol wines—answering the burning questions wine lovers have and busting the most common myths.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the exact science behind de-alcoholized wines, explaining vacuum distillation, spinning cone, and reverse osmosis—revealing how flavor, aromas, and even sugar content are impacted. You’ll get first-hand tasting insights and discover which wine styles shine in this category. 

Plus, find out the real reason wellness seekers, professionals, and anyone needing a sober lifestyle are turning to zero-alcohol options, including “proxy” wines and botanically-driven blends.

Whether you’re watching your sugar intake, managing allergies, or craving a wine experience on a weekday, this episode arms you with actionable tips to choose the best bottle for your needs. 

You’ll also get my take on upcoming industry trends and why non-alcoholic wines are now a must in high-stakes settings—from business lunches to celebratory brunches.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

• The real differences in flavor, mouthfeel, and sugar content between de-alcoholized and traditional wines—and what to expect in your glass
• How non-alcoholic wines are made (and why some cost more than regular wine)—so you can buy with confidence and avoid common pitfalls
• Solutions for wine lovers with allergies, sensitivities, or wellness goals, including what to look for on labels
• How to incorporate alcohol-free wines into professional, social, and family settings—empowering your choices without sacrificing enjoyment

Everyday Sommelier Podcast is turning ONE! Thanks to you, our loyal listeners, we've had a fantastic first year! We're relaunching a few of your favorite episodes in celebration!

We're also announcing the launch of Sip Society Collective where high-impact women can 10X their Social Power Skills through wine. https://sipsocietycollective.com.

Cheers to many more years! Kristi

It's been such a pleasure sharing wine with you this past year! We also want to let you know our INSTAGRAM handle has changed to @kristi_sipsocietycollective - if you are already following, you're good to go. If you haven't followed us yet, now is the time!

Cheers to one year, our launch of Sip Society Collective (https://sipsocietycollective.com) and to learning wine your way! Kristi

Liked this episode? Share it and tag me @kristi_sipsocietycollective

Love the show? Leave a review and let me know!

Visit us at SIP SOCIETY COLLECTIVE

CONNECT WITH KRISTI: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Group


Love the EVERYDAY SOMMELIER soundtrack? Follow the amazing Raymond Revel on Instagram!

Inspired by our artwork? Follow the uber talented Sophie Metzger on Instagram!

Transcript

Kristi Mayfield [00:00:00]:
If you ask wine lovers about their experience with low alcohol or non alcohol wines, you're likely to get a lot of mixed reviews and the majority of them might never have even tried them. But of those who have, they might have done so a couple of years ago and haven't gone back since. But why is this? Is there a root cause or a common thread? I mean, let's be candid with ourselves. When a beverage or a food that we're used to or we love has had something removed, is it the same? Have you ever had that low fat chocolate chip cookie that was simply as ooey and gooey and delicious as the real thing? Or a sugar free soft drink that tasted exactly like the original? Probably not. So on today's episode we are going to put non alcoholic wines to the test to see how they stand up on quality, taste and your overall wine experience. So you're going to be armed with all the information you need to explore the when, the how, the why. You might actually want to put a few of these non alcoholic wines into your own rotation. Welcome to Everyday Sommelier where we make learning about wine approachable, fun and something you can actually enjoy.

Kristi Mayfield [00:01:16]:
I'm your host, Christy Mayfield. Think of me as your sommelier next door, here to help you cut through the complexity so you can enjoy every glass with confidence and learn wine your way. I hadn't given non alcoholic wines a lot of thought until recently when one of my friends who works at the wine shop down the hill told me she was expecting a baby. And because she loves her sparkling wines, the wine shop owner had added a few to their selection so she could continue to enjoy a glass of bubbles during her pregnancy. Now of course, I couldn't resist grabbing a bottle and bringing it home to serve my friends who were coming over for a weekend brunch. So when my college besties came over for girls brunch, we popped the cork and found it was citrusy, it was bright, it was fresh and it was kind of fun. But the best part was we could enjoy this celebratory drink together without having to worry about how we felt the rest of the day. So.

Kristi Mayfield [00:02:18]:
So bottom line, I would actually buy that wine again. But as with any wine, not all alcoholic wines are created equal. So let's deep dive, let's explore and I am going to start off with a question I get asked all the time. What are the most common complaints about non alcoholic wines? Where do they stand as far as flavor and texture or complexity? Are they simply trying too hard to be just like the traditional wines. And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to assume that you at least like wine, if not love wine. So it's also safe to assume that when you go to your local grocery store wine shop, you probably going to skip right over the non alcoholic section without ever considering stopping and exploring. Because you might have that perspective that if you have a non alcoholic wine, you're going to have to sacrifice five flavor. You as well as many other wine lovers may not have ever even considered non alcoholic wine as a real wine.

Kristi Mayfield [00:03:20]:
And if you haven't tried this category, you've likely heard some complaints from people who have that it's just not the same. So what are the common perceptions about non alcoholic wine? First, the flavor profile does not fully duplicate real wine. Isn't it fair to assume that the process for removing the alcohol is going to significantly impact the taste, the aromas, or if they're going to feel less complex, they're just not going to feel the same way that a traditional wine does? I mean, the body, the aromatics, the balance of the wine all come from alcohol, right? Secondly, that non alcoholic versions of wine can have significant sugar content. And that's actually true because to enhance the taste of some of these non alcoholic wines, they can actually have a lot of added sugar content. And if you're watching your sugar intake, this can actually be a real concern. Third, removing alcohol changes the body, the mouth feel of the wine. And winemakers will put in all these weird added ingredients and additives to try to re mimic. Again, it's true.

Kristi Mayfield [00:04:34]:
Non alcoholic wines can try to mimic the mouthfeel of traditional alcoholic wines by adding things like glycerin or certain flavorings which can cause sensitivities for some people. And finally, non alcoholic wines can trigger things like histamine sensitivities. And let's get real, all wines are made from grapes. Well, there are some fruit wines, but traditional wines are made from grapes. Grapes have histamines, they grow outdoors and people can have extensive sensitivities. They can get headaches, nasal congestion, a lot of allergy like symptoms from histamines. But it doesn't matter whether you're drinking a non alcoholic version or a traditional version of wine. If you're sensitive to histamine, this will be a trigger.

Kristi Mayfield [00:05:17]:
And it's completely understandable to have these perspectives. This is a fairly new category of winemaking and like many new things, it takes a while to get the quality and the experience that you're aiming for. But rather than Just ignoring this segment of wine, we're going to take time to define what what these wines truly are and how they get de alcoholized or how they are zero alcohol. And then we're going to share a few ways that you might actually want these wines to play a role in your own wine journey. So when it comes to making de alcoholized wines or non alcohol wines, there are two distinct processes. And believe it or not, the first one we're going to talk about starts with traditional wine, fermented alcohol filled wine. Just like what's in your glass right now. Of course, we're taking a liberty in assuming that you're drinking wine while listening to this podcast.

Kristi Mayfield [00:06:13]:
So in the alcohol removed or de alcoholized segment, the wine all starts with alcohol the same way as a traditional stilled wine. It goes through fermentation. So the sugars plus the yeast equal the alcohol. But there are three methods that are used to remove the alcohol post fermentation. I'm going to caveat this with the the resulting wine is typically going to still have about a half a percent of alcohol by volume. I'm going to do my best to not get too geeky and not get too technical as I describe these processes. So stick with me on this. And I have added some great videos in the show notes which can help you visualize these processes, which for me is super helpful.

Kristi Mayfield [00:07:00]:
Now, the first one is vacuum distillation, which is kind of the most popular process used. And what this does is it takes your still wines, it takes the the alcohol based wines and puts them into a big vessel and the pressure is then removed out of this vessel. And what does that do for it? Well, alcohol or wine will boil at a temperature of about 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, if you are going to boil wine at that level, first of all, you will get rid of the alcohol, which is part of the process. But what you're also going to do at that high of a temperature is you are going to create some sour or bitter or really unpleasant flavors in the resulting wine due to that heat. So when you put this wine into a depressurized vessel, you can actually bring that boiling point down to somewhere between 70 and 95, 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which is right in line with the traditional temperatures wine ferments at to begin with. So you are going to be able to have significant control as a winemaker. It's a very gentle process and it leaves the flavors and aromas of the remaining wine basically intact from their original.

Kristi Mayfield [00:08:23]:
And then the alcohol that's, that is vaporized off of the wine, condenses in a separate vessel, and then is cooled and can be used for all kinds of different things that we'll talk about later. The second process is called spinning cone, and this is a subset of the vacuum distillation process that I just talked about. So you have a same concept. You have a vacuum sealed, depressurized vessel, but within this vessel is a vertical series of all these cones. As the cones separate, spin around, they produce centrifugal force. So think about your favorite amusement park and that ride where you get in, you stand against the walls, and it starts spinning and spinning and spinning, and then the floor drops out, but you stick against the walls. That's centrifugal force. So the centrifugal force forces the wine into these thin layers over the surface of each of the cones, and the alcohol starts to evaporate off of it.

Kristi Mayfield [00:09:19]:
But also these flavors and aromas concentrate and are separ through this high spinning process because they are separated at the end of the process, you have the alcohol in one vessel and you have the remaining compounds for the flavors and aromas that get blended right back into the original liquid once the wine has been de alcoholized. So all of that concentrate is just mixed back into the remaining liquid, which is mostly water. But you do lose in both of these processes, a significant percentage of the wine. If you're removing the alcohol and it's a wine that starts at 13%, you're going to lose somewhere between 13 and even 20% of the total liquid. So winemakers have to put additional liquid, most likely an unfermented grape juice, back into it to get to the resulting amount of liquid that you started with. So think, think of it kind of like our champagne process. When we remove the yeast puck and we disgorge that puck, you do lose some volume. And then we put back in a liqueur d' expedition to bring that bottle right back up to the volume that it had to begin with, 750 milliliters.

Kristi Mayfield [00:10:34]:
So again, these processes are both in the show notes in video form, and I highly recommend taking a few seconds to watch them. The last process we're going to talk about to de alcoholize wine is called reverse process osmosis. Now, this is a series of high filtration. So you've got these super, super, super duty filters, and the wine is just pushed back through it time and time and time again, all of the flavors and all of the aroma compounds get stuck to these filters and on the Other side of that, you end up with the water and the alcohol, and that liquid is then boiled. The alcohol of course, evaporates off of it and you just have water remaining. And then the compounds are all added back, remaining liquid. The key thing here is that because you are highly filtering, when you add the compounds back in, there are some of the flavors, some of the aromas that are going to get lost in translation. But this can actually be good for the winemaker if they want to manipulate the final flavor of the wine by keeping some of those compounds still separated.

Kristi Mayfield [00:11:47]:
But it is high energy process and a very expensive process. And again, you do lose a little bit of the flavor or aroma nuance because of that high level of filtration. So these are the top three methods for removing alcohol from a traditional bottle of wine. So again, it started just like the wine in your refrigerator today, but the remaining alcohol is still there. Now, while it is about half a percent, let's translate into what that looks in a traditional wine. So let's take a single glass of traditional alcohol based wine that has about 13% alcohol. If you want to have an equivalent amount of de alcoholized wine to that one glass, you're going to need to drink about 15 bottles of alcohol removed wine to create the same amount of alcohol in your single glass. Now, many of the foods in our kitchens today, right there on our, on our counter or in our refrigerator, have about the same amount of alcohol as these alcohol removed wines.

Kristi Mayfield [00:12:50]:
So things like your fruits and fruit juices, especially things like ripe bananas or kombucha yogurt, kefir, your vinegars, your mustards, even your soy sauce. But what I found most interesting is that that hamburger bun you're going to use in your barbecue this weekend has the same amount, if not more alcohol than a bottle of non alcohol or de alcoholized wine. So it's not sur that when we go through any of the three processes we've talked about, there is going to be a small residual amount of alcohol remaining through these processes. An additional question is why are these non alcoholized wines more expensive than their alcohol based cousins? I mean, they don't even have alcohol in them, so why would they be more expensive? And while there are some that are around $10, most of them are going to be a little higher price than traditional wines, mostly falling somewhere below $30. But here's some reasons why. First of all, all of the processes we just talked about are expensive. You've got the equipment that's expensive, the energy consumption to extract the alcohol itself is expensive. I've talked about the fact that less liquid remains after the alcohol is removed.

Kristi Mayfield [00:14:07]:
So if you start off with 100 liters and you go through the de alkalization you're probably going to have 80 liters remaining. So you have to make up that other 15 to 20% somehow or you have fewer bottles to sell at the end of the day after the processes. And some of these alcohols that are extracted off can go into things like gins or spirits, vodkas or biofuels. But the revenue from that is definitely not going to completely compensate for that loss of about 20%. Now wines that don't go through that process that are still called non alcoholic wines are made in a completely different way. The ones that have never alcohol to begin with. So if that.05% alcohol is still more alcohol than you'd like, there are true zero alcohol options. But unlike their alcohol removed cousins, they've never gone through fermentation.

Kristi Mayfield [00:15:00]:
So they've simply never had alcohol in them to begin with. Now these are sometimes called proxy wines or wine adjacent beverages. A lot of them will use grapes or grape juice as the base. But then they use all these additional alternative ingredients to create flavors and aromas that mimic or are wine like. But again they don't go through through fermentation. So they can start and finish as 0% alcohol or 0% ABV. And they get these sensitive sensibilities, these wine like flavors from things like teas and spices or fruit flavors, bitters. In other words.

Kristi Mayfield [00:15:39]:
They're created from a lot of different natural or botanical inputs. Everything except alcohol. And because they were never fermented.000 alcohol at the end of the day. So why is there such a growing interest in non alcoholic wines? And why does this matter to you? Why does this matter to anyone who's a wine enthusiast? And how could you potentially embrace this category in order to benefit your wine journey overall? I mean what can you do? So rather than thinking about having to 100% substitute all of your alcohol based wines for a non alcohol version, think instead. Maybe there's times that you really would love a glass of wine but you pass on it simply because of the situation or the timing. Maybe it's for lunch during the week. It's a business lunch. Or maybe it's a weeknight and you've got to get up early the next day.

Kristi Mayfield [00:16:37]:
Or maybe you're out to dinner but you've got your kids and family with you and so you can't be driving after a glass of wine. So These are great options, great occasions for putting a non alcoholic wine into your rotation. Let's think Monday through Wednesday. Typically on Mondays through Wednesdays, I'm starting my day with coffee and I'm drinking water the rest of the day. And let me tell you, that gets really, really, really boring. So a non alcoholic wine at dinner on a Tuesday is a great way to enjoy the wine experience. I already mentioned brunch with my besties. We had non alcoholic mimosas and we were able to enjoy the rest of the day.

Kristi Mayfield [00:17:16]:
So how could you use this on your weekend brunch to really enjoy the same experience as that mimosa, but without the alcohol? If you're taking Ozempic or if you're on a diet, or if you have sensitivities to sugar in general. But you have to be careful, as we talked about, to make sure you're looking at the labels to find those that do have more residual sugar added back in. But in general the calories of one bottle, not one glass of a of de alcoholized wine is around 120 calories. And because these are non alcohol based, the FDA actually regulates them versus wines which are regulated by the TTB. So food labeling requirements apply and so you can generally get all the information, the caloric intake, everything you need, simply on the bottle. There are so many new ones to try. Here's a few places to get some great options. First and foremost, the top rated non alcoholic wines of 2024.

Kristi Mayfield [00:18:17]:
This is always a fan favorite of mine is to just look at the ones selected by the magazine Wine Enthusiast. I've put it in the show notes and they've got some great options. So we're drinking things from Giessen, from Sovi, from Fray, Toast, Lyre. These are both the de alcoholized versions as well as the proxies and they're super fun. And you can get reds, whites, sparklers, roses, whatever style you like. But why is this important to you? There are times in your wine journey when you do want that flavor, you want that experience, but you just don't want the alcohol. And we get it. And that's why we're covering this topic for you today.

Kristi Mayfield [00:18:58]:
Because the good news is that the non alcoholic wine industry is shifting. It's shifting away from simply this gigo approach or garbage in, garbage out approach. Let's just get something without alcohol on the shelf. And now we're shifting to quality, we're shifting to flavor and we're starting with amazing wines on the front end. But sure, they're going to taste slightly different because they're going to give a little bit different mouth feel. Alcohol in wine is going to add weight, it's going to add body, it's going to give you that yummy warming sensation. Or as some people in the industry, wine industry, that is, say it gives a wine their soul. But the non alcoholic wine trend is here to stay.

Kristi Mayfield [00:19:46]:
And with more and more wineries putting non alcoholic wines into their portfolios, it's a really, really good thing. But at the end of the day, if you are trying a low alcohol, non alcohol or de alcoholized wine, setting your expectations is key because you aren't going to get 100% of the wine experience. It's not a 100% substitution, but what you are going to get is these fun and flavorful wine like beverages that are going to pair with your meals. They're going to give you that sparkling wine experience on a Saturday brunch or on a Tuesday night. Or you can use them for a totally new experience all together. So set your expectations and the next time you're out shopping for wines to replenish your home, grab a bottle or two of now alcoholic wines and see for yourself how these can be a really fun way to continue to enjoy the flavor of wine without the alcohol. So we know that you are learning so much about wine on Everyday Sommelier and we want you to be in our insider team so you can continue to learn and continue to grow in your wine journey. So go to our website at www.wine-wise w I z e.com it'll be in the show notes and become an insider by subscribing to our weekly newsletter today.

Kristi Mayfield [00:21:15]:
We also know that because you are listening to Everyday Sommelier, we would love for you to rate and review our show. So if you're on Apple Podcasts, simply scroll down and leave us a review. Or better yet, instead of a review, ask us a question. Give us a topic you'd like for us to cover on an upcoming episode because we'd love to hear what you want to learn. But this inspiration and continuous learning about wine may have you thinking, how can I take my wine journey to the next level? And you are in luck because on next week's episode we're going to be covering wine certifications with Jenny Hemmer, who is the Executive Director of Gil Some. And you're going to walk away knowing what your options are and have all the information you need to decide for yourself if one of these is right for you. So pop that cork on a non alcoholic wine and learn wine your way.