Is Alcohol-Free Wine Actually Good?! Brutally Honest Review

Wine without alcohol. Is it actually wine? And more importantly, is it actually good? Those are questions that I frequently get, so it's time to revisit the fast-growing category of de-alcoholized wines, and I'm going to taste a bunch of them today, so let's go. Humans have been making wine for more than 8,000 years, so clearly our relationship with alcohol runs deep. Alcohol usually makes up less than 15% of a wine bottle's volume, but it matters. It carries flavor, adds body, and it also helps you relax. Alcohol may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease when consumed in moderation. But alcohol can also cause serious health problems. That's why global alcohol consumption has been declining, especially in Europe and the US. People still want to drink something, and wineries still want to sell their wine-based products, so enter alcohol-free wine. Legally, in Europe, wine must contain at least 8.5% of alcohol, with a few exceptions. So these products aren't technically wine. They're classified as de-alcoholized or alcohol-free wine. So what's the difference between grape juice and alcohol-free wine? It's simple. Alcohol-free wine starts as a real fermented wine. The alcohol is then removed, and the product still has those winey flavors, whereas grape juice just tastes like grape juice. Different methods are used to remove the alcohol. Vacuum distillation, reverse osmosis, and spinning cone columns, for example. The alcohol is taken out. All of the other parts are kept in the product. Some claim that, in the end, it tastes exactly like wine, but that's never really true. I mean, they always taste differently because the alcohol is missing. The alcohol has an important role in the product. So if you take it out, the product just changes completely. These methods are usually expensive because the equipment is so expensive. So many small wineries are not able to purchase the equipment for themselves in order to make de-alcoholized wines in their own facilities. De-alcoholized wine doesn't mean that it doesn't contain any alcohol. It can contain up to 0.5% in the EU. All right, de-alcoholized wine isn't grape juice, but it's also not wine. And now I want to find out whether those products are actually good enough in order for me to stop drinking wine over dinner and pour some de-alcoholized stuff into my glass. Let's check. Many of the best de-alcoholized wines I've tasted in the past were sparkling wines because they tend to perform better. The biggest problem I had with de-alcoholized wines was that many of them are quite sugary. So the alcohol actually adds texture. If you remove it, it leaves a hole. And most of the producers actually filled that hole by just adding sugar, which is, I don't think, a really great choice. So let's dive in. The first de-alcoholized wine I'm tasting is the Freshenet Alcohol-Free 0.0 Low-Calorie Selected Sparkling product. Doesn't sound very romantic, but anyways. So this product contains 95% of wine and it's labeled as a sparkling beverage made from de-alcoholized wine. So let's pop that cork. Whoa, under pressure. So this looks like a sparkling wine. It's quite pale in color. Most high-quality sparkling wines made using the traditional method are darker because they are in contact with yeast and therefore take on this golden hue. This is quite pale. The bubbles are fine. There is not, there are not too many bubbles here, but yeah, it looks a bit like a Prosecco. On the nose, it smells of ripe apple. It also smells of pear. And there's oftentimes when I drink de-alcoholized wines or taste them, there is kind of a flavor of onions or baby diaper. So it's not necessarily really, yeah, not a beautiful flavor. But I mean, it's there. Like kind of oniony, weird, funky flavors. I don't have to spit this because yeah, it doesn't contain any alcohol. But on the other end, I also don't want to drink kind of stuff like that, especially when it contains a lot of sugar. So I'm going to spit. So this contains 3.8 grams per 100 milliliters, which would be 38 grams per liter, which would put this wine in the very high off-dry category. Not quite in the sweet wine category, but quite kind of on the upper scale of off-dry. On the palate, there's also a little bit of exotic fruit flavor, passion fruit. There's a little bit of mango character coming through as well. I don't know whether those are added flavors or whether those are flavors that develop naturally in the wine. But yeah, it's actually quite nice. I mean, it's fresh, vibrant. I wouldn't mind drinking this like a glass, but it's also not something that really kind of gets me excited at all. So I'm going to rate this 75 points. I think, yeah, it's kind of an average attempt of producing something similar to wine. So next up, we have the Borgo Molino alcohol-free. Borgo Molino is a Prosecco producer, and this kind of looks like Prosecco, but it's not labeled as Prosecco because you're not allowed to label it as a Prosecco if it doesn't contain any alcohol. So this is just a vino dialcolato, spumante, classificato, ottenuto mediante aggiunta di anitrite carbonica dry. That rolls off the tongue. Let's see whether it tastes any good. I mean, I guess like Prosecco, yeah, Prosecco alcohol-free is probably a category that works quite well. Obviously, this can't be labeled as Prosecco, but the style is similar to Prosecco. Whoa. Again, this looks kind of like a light, sparkling wine, frothy, pale yellow-green in color. Whoa, this is super aromatic. This is quite interesting. I mean, it smells of green apple, but it's really bright and clean. It doesn't have those baby diaper kind of flavors. There's lemon, pineapple, a little bit of peachy notes as well. I think if I would smell this in a blind tasting, I would think this is wine. On the palate, this is quite light and fresh. I mean, it says dry on the label, so I don't really know how much sugar it has, but it feels drier than the previous wine. It has good grip, good, fine bubbles. I mean, it doesn't have a lot of body. It feels kind of, yeah, really light, but yeah, it's pretty well-made. So let's scan the back label to get the nutrition information. Okay, 30 grams of sugar per liter. So that's quite a bit lower than the previous wine. Not really dry yet, but it feels light and refreshing, so it's really balanced. All right, I'm going to rate this 80 points. I think it's actually pretty good. It's fresh, zesty, lively. Yeah, not bad. So next up, we have the Ackermann Bull Royal Zero Alcohol Blanc, which sounds pretty fancy. There are a lot of references to the Loire River on the label and in the description, but they obviously can't label it as AOC Loire because it's not. I mean, it's not wine, so they can't. Whoa, all right, intense mousse here. So quite a bit of mousse. The color is also a little bit more golden. I don't know why, but it is. Flavor-wise, this is interesting. It actually reminds me of Chandon Blanc, maybe just because I saw all the Loire references here, but it has a little bit of that waxy, woolly character, lemon notes. So definitely a little bit of grassiness as well, which might point more towards Sauvignon Blanc, but it does have some character, which is nice, I'd say. Going for the more exotic fruit flavors is maybe the more obvious choice, but this just smells a little different. On the palate, this is quite juicy, lively. I'd say sugar-wise, a little higher. Good acidity, though. Quite well-balanced. But it actually contains 12 grams of sugar per liter, which is the lowest so far by a mile, which almost sounds too low, but I guess if they put it here, it must be right. Methode traditionnelle. On this thing, it actually says vin mousseux de qualité. It also says it's brut, and it's made using the méthode traditionnelle, which, I mean, there's something wrong here. I mean, this is not a Vin Blanc. This is something else. Maybe someone has to change the data here. Just a suggestion, you know? The next product actually comes from the Manufacture Jörg Geiger. It's the Blanc de Blanc with Chardonnay. It looks beautiful, really, really nice design, and it's made using 85% of de-alcoholized wine. They actually add a lot of information on the back label. The wine was made using 80% of Chardonnay grapes and 20% of Colombard grapes from organic vineyards, and they also added apple juice, gooseberry juice, tangerine juice, herbs, flowers, and spices, and CO2. So yeah, let's taste this. This is definitely one of the prettiest de-alcoholized wines I've seen. Looks good. All right, this is dark in color. I would say quite golden, very aromatic. Whoa, that's lots of stuff going on here. So for me, this smells exactly like baked apple. Apple, cinnamon, there's a little bit of spice, like cardamom, cloves kind of flavor coming through as well. So this is really interesting, but it doesn't smell like wine at all. And there's also like a pie character, apple pie flavor, so a little bit of baked goods, like bread kind of flavors. On the palate, this also is quite intense, so there is fruitiness there, but there's also like a kind of spicy touch, not hot, but it just kind of grabs your tongue, gives you a little bit of a feeling of astringency. And the sugar is quite low, it's at 20 grams per liter. And yeah, it's an exciting product, but it doesn't taste like sparkling wine, which probably is a good thing. I like this. I mean, this is different, this is exciting. It's actually something that you can talk about a little bit. The other wines were just kind of, they were okay, but you wouldn't want to kind of share your experiences tasting those products. This is actually quite interesting, just has its own character. So I'm going to rate this 86 points. Good stuff. So this is the last sparkling de-alcoholized wine before we move into the still wines or still de-alcoholized wines. And this is the French Bloom, French sparkling wine, alcohol-free. It's organic. And yeah, let's see whether it's any good. Looks rosy, but I don't know whether it is. Let's find out. No, it's actually made with French organic Chardonnay wines. So I don't know why it's this color. It looks, doesn't it look a little rosy? I would say it looks rosy. Let's try not to hit the camera this time. I've never destroyed anything with a cork. This is going to change, maybe this year. Well, not this time. All right, and this is the bubbles. This looks like kind of dishwasher water. It doesn't look very pretty, I'd say, but maybe it's just the glass. I mean, it's not the glass's fault, but maybe it's something that was in the glass. Okay, this smells quite aromatic. It smells of pear drops, a little bit artificial, to be honest. There's quite a lot of honey flavor and just weird flavors. And this doesn't smell like Chardonnay at all. They're saying acacia, honeysuckle, and citrus, which is probably not that wrong. It does smell quite a lot of honey and flowers, which is weird, I think, for a sparkling wine. But it's light. The sugar level is actually okay. It's 25, 24 grams per liter. And it's all right. It's a decent product. I'm going to rate this 78 points. So the first still wine is the Sin A Blanco 000%. It's a still white wine from Spain. On the back label, it says de-aqualized wine with added natural aroma. And it's 25 grams of residual sugar. The color is kind of pale yellow. Well, there's that kind of weird flavor again. So yeah, it smells of onions, which is not, I mean, I don't know. Wine and onions doesn't really work. You know, when you cut onions and then afterwards kind of cut fruit on the same board, that's what it smells like, what the fruit would smell like after doing that. Apart from the onions, I get apple and gooseberries and green fruit flavors. Nothing intense. This is not aromatic. This is kind of light. And yeah, I mean, light fruity onion kind of stuff. On the palate, oh yeah. I mean, there's something missing, you know. Texture-wise, this has quite a high green acidity. And it doesn't have a lot of sugar, which is good, but it just misses some mouthfeel. So this is kind of harsh, short, not great. So I'm going to rate this 65 points. I mean, I'd rather drink lemon juice mixed with solar water. That'd be more fun than this. So now it's going to get really tricky because red wines, de-alcoholized red wines, that's just kind of one of the most disgusting categories. But let's see. I mean, in this case, they at least took the packaging quite serious. Divin Vigneron Pinot Noir. So this is apparently Pinot Noir, and they used a cork to seal the bottle, which is completely unnecessary. I mean, corks are great if you want to age the wine, but I mean, like, this is not going to age. So, and then also putting wax on top of the cork is just kind of hilarious. But they are trying to make sure that people get that they did their best effort here, I guess. As most of you know, Pinot Noir is one of the most difficult grape varieties to get right. I mean, I know because I made this, my homemade Pinot, which is absolutely terrible. But anyways, yeah, turning this into a de-alcoholized wine must be kind of difficult. I mean, into one that tastes good. So let's taste this. All right, so this is a mix of 97.5% of de-alcoholized wine. And then they added 2.4% of concentrated grape must to beef up the wine, I guess. So this is ruby in color. It's kind of cloudy, I would say. It's not quite clear. Yeah, I guess this might have something to do with the grape must. I don't think that they use an unfiltered, de-alcoholized wine. I don't think that's even possible. So interesting. All right, on the nose, it's actually, I mean, it smells of ripe cherries, a little bit of blackberries. Quite ripe, but I mean, nose-wise, I'd say it smells like Pinot. Well, on the palate, it doesn't taste like Pinot, but it doesn't taste bad. Many of the red wines that I've tasted so far, de-alcoholized red wines, they were kind of really weird because they have sugar, they have tannins, they just lack the body and therefore feel really astringent and disgusting. This is actually quite balanced. I mean, it's 27 grams of residual sugar. The acidity is okay. Tannins are low. I mean, this is very light and really short on the palate, but it's not bad. I mean, this might be the best de-alcoholized red wine I've ever tasted, which doesn't say a lot, but still, not bad. So I'm going to rate this 81 points. So pretty good stuff. So last but not least, we have the 2023 Ottbert GSM, and it says liberated from alcohol on the label. I don't know, liberated? I'd say stripped. So this is actually a cuvee of Syrah, Grenache, Mouvertre, and Carignan. It was aged for 12 months from schist and chalky clay soils from the region of Saint-Chinien in France. Interesting. I actually wasn't quite sure whether they're allowed to put the name of an official region on the label, but apparently they can. So yeah, let's taste this. So it actually has 40 grams of sugar per liter, which is, I'd say, quite high, but yeah, let's taste it. I mean, the rest of it sounds like they take themselves really serious. So let's taste whether the wine is serious as well. So color-wise, this is kind of pale ruby, a little bit of garnish. So it looks like wine. Looks like a slightly aged wine. Oh, no. On the nose, this smells of baby diapers. It smells of kind of mushy fruit. I think it just smells really terrible. No, I don't really want to put it into my mouth, but I have to. Let's go. Oh, no. It's kind of sweet, sour, bitter, all of those kind of weird things combined. There's definitely something missing there. The alcohol they liberated the product from is missing. That's for sure. You know, it just doesn't make any sense, this product. So it's rough. I mean, the packaging suggests a lot, and this is just not delivering at all. I'm going to rate it 57 points. I just, I wouldn't want to drink this. All right, this was an interesting update to the de-alcoholized wine category. I would definitely say stick with the sparkling products because the still ones aren't quite up to scratch. I really liked this one, the Jörg Geiger product, which isn't really, it didn't really taste like wine. Maybe that's what I liked about it. I also thought this Pinot was something quite unique. I'd love to have that in a blind tasting and get people's reactions to it because I don't think everyone would get straight away that it's de-alcoholized. So while I guess that there is improvement in this category and the quality of the wines or the de-alcoholized wines is getting higher and higher, I still don't really get why this category even exists. I know there are some people who can't drink any alcohol and there are some people who shouldn't drink any alcohol. And for them, this might be an interesting option, but I actually would rather drink something else without alcohol instead of drinking this kind of stuff. I mean, well, something like this can be fun, but I think after two glasses, I'm also kind of done with it. I think if you look at beer, there's definitely still a lot more enjoyment that you can get from drinking a good de-alcoholized beer. In the case of wine, I don't think we're quite there yet, but that's why I do those tastings. I wanna see what is going on in the segment and now I know what to avoid in the future. So thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, then please like it down here, subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so already. My question of the day is, what do you think about de-alcoholized wine? Do you like them or not? Do you have any suggestions? Let me know down below in the comments, but whatever you do, stay thirsty.