Quick Guide to Low and No Alcohol Wine

An Introduction to Low and No Alcohol Wine

Despite some more traditional wine drinkers initially being opposed to the concept of low alcohol wine, it’s now become quite an exciting prospect to many and for a lot of reasons.

The key driving force behind the low and no alcohol trend is that people are generally becoming more conscious of what they consume. The practical and nutritional benefits of consuming less alcohol are inarguable – something millions of us Brits reap the benefits of during Dry January every year.

We’re also seeing a trend of younger generations moving away from drinking stronger wines and spirits. Many simply aren’t that interested, and perhaps want to differentiate themselves from the generations before them. With these points in mind, and the fact certain producers are starting to really master low ABV and non-alcoholic wines, it’s no wonder their popularity has started to take off.

Is Low Alcohol Wine More Than Just Grape Juice?

Yes, so much more! A huge misconception is that wine with low or no alcohol content is simply just grape juice. When in actual fact, wine that has little to no alcohol content is usually made using the same practices as your standard ABV wine – just with an extra step or two added to the winemaking process to ensure alcohol isn’t present in the bottle at the end.

In a nutshell, wine production is all about transforming fruit sugars into alcohol through a chemical process called fermentation. So, to achieve a wine with little alcohol content, a winemaker will either opt to use grapes that haven’t developed much natural sugar, or extract the ethanol from the wine at the end of production (see How is Low Alcohol Wine Made for more on exactly how they do this!). However the winemaker chooses to approach it, the end result is still, fundamentally, a wine. With all the complexities you’d expect from a quality bottle of plonk.

It’s worth mentioning, though, that this hasn’t always been the case! We’ve had to put up with several years of pretty bad stuff to get to this point. However, we’re now at a stage where producers are regularly putting out good, very drinkable low ABV wines, for people to enjoy as part of a healthier and cleaner lifestyle.

What Percentage is Low Alcohol Wine?

One of the biggest areas of confusion with low alcohol categories is exactly what qualifies as a low or no alcohol wine. But it’s actually quite simple!

‘Low / No’ alcohol can be used to describe any bottle of wine with a 1.2% ABV or lower. Due to the removal of alcohol from wine being a rather complicated procedure, the possibility of achieving 0% ABV is actually very difficult. A 0% ABV wine wouldn’t have a nice mouthfeel anyway, so the 1.2% leeway is there for good reason!

And if you wanted to try a wine that only has a slightly reduced alcohol level, but not quite as low as 1.2%? You can find some wonderfully complex wines with a significantly lower ABV than usual that sit around 5.5 – 10% ABV (a standard dry white wine will have 11 – 13.5% ABV, while a standard red will be 12 – 14.5% ABV). At VW we call these ‘lower’ alcohol wines, as they sit somewhere in the middle of normal and low. It’s not a term you’ll find on a wine label, but knowing a little about typical ABV levels will help you spot the reduced ones.

How is Lower Alcohol Wine Made?

For this style of wine, extraction of alcohol never actually takes place. This may sound odd. But for lower ABV wine production, it’s more about the core ingredients of the wine being altered, rather than taking something away from the wine at the end.

Ripe grapes are full of residual sugar, and it’s this sugar that is converted into alcohol during fermentation. The addition of yeast to the grape juice is what triggers the reaction. So to achieve a lower ABV wine, winemakers can choose to use unripe grapes (through early harvesting or advanced pruning methods such as trimming the vines to stunt the plant’s sugar-making ability), or use a low ethanol-producing yeast during fermentation to restrict alcohol production.

A lower alcohol wine that tastes sweet rather than dry will likely have been achieved through deliberately shortening the fermentation process. By interrupting fermentation prematurely, there will still be some residual sugar left in the blend that did not get converted into alcohol.

Did You Know?

Winemaker John Forrest is a scientist and pioneer in the lower alcohol wine industry. The Forrest approach involves very specific pruning of the vines and a unique trellising system, resulting in reduced levels of sugar in the fruit, perfectly balanced with the right level of acidity. The outcome? Beautifully complex dry wines with a lower ABV (around 9.5%) and heaps of character and taste! Simply put, he’s a bit of a genius.