Method 1: Reverse Osmosis

To produce a wine that has an extremely low alcohol content, the process starts the same as it would for regular wine production. The winemaker harvests the grapes they’d like to use in the blend, crushes them into a juice, and then ferments in a tank to convert the natural sugars of the fruit into alcohol. This process differs slightly depending on whether the wine being made is red or white (take a look at How is Red Wine Made vs How is White Wine Made to find out how), but the end result is the same in essence – a wine with alcohol content.

A standard red wine will usually be 12 – 14.5% ABV, while a classic dry white will be 11 – 13.5% ABV.

This is where it all gets rather technical! Instead of going straight to being bottled or moved to barrels for ageing, the wine must go through a few more steps in the winery to remove the alcohol. The wine is placed into a Reverse Osmosis system – which, in plain English, basically means machinery that separates the components that make up a liquid. In winemaking, it is used to separate water and alcohol from a wine. A new stream of liquid containing only water and ethanol, known as the ‘permeate’, is created and pumped out of the tank.

The ‘permeate’ is piped into column stills, where the alcohol can then be extracted from the liquid using heat (a process known as distillation). Now, here’s the science-y bit! Ethanol boils at 78.3°C, a much lower temperature than the boiling point for water. So by heating the ‘permeate’ to 78.3°C, the alcohol evaporates and rises up the column still, where it is then collected and put aside. What the winemaker is left with is essentially water.

Once the water has cooled, it is then pumped back into the wine. The end result is a blend that has everything a regular wine would have – the luscious flavours, aromas, texture and characteristics – just minus the alcohol!

The winemaker is now able to bottle the wine with a label that states it’s ‘low alcohol’, as long as enough alcohol was removed to leave only 1.2% ABV or less in the final product. While a wine with such a tiny ABV level like this can often be thought of as non-alcoholic, it does not qualify as ‘alcohol free’.

Method 2: Vacuum Distillation

This is a simpler and quicker method for removing alcohol from wine, although uses the same basic principle of applying heat to extract it. As with Method 1, the winemaker starts by producing a wine in the traditional way. This means taking a grape juice and placing it into a fermentation tank with yeast, which triggers a reaction that converts the fruit sugars into alcohol. By the time fermentation is complete, the winemaker is typically left with a wine that has 11 – 14.5% ABV.

Instead of separating out all the components of the wine before applying any heat, in this method the base wine is heated intact. The wine is warmed to 78.3°C – the point at which ethanol boils – so that the alcohol evaporates out of the blend. It is collected and put aside, leaving a wine with little to no alcohol content at all.

(Although the wine itself does not boil, some winemakers feel uncomfortable about heating the wine to this degree as they feel it can affect the wine’s aromas. So, while Method 2 may be quick and cheaper, they opt for Method 1 instead.)

Once the wine has cooled, it can then be bottled. The winemaker is now able to state that this is a ‘low alcohol’ wine on the label, as long as the final blend has an ABV level of 1.2 % or under. Again, unless the ABV is as low as zero (or a tiny bit over), it cannot qualify as ‘alcohol free’ wine.

How is Lower Alcohol Wine Made?

As if it wasn’t confusing enough getting your head around what actually qualifies as a low alcohol wine or an alcohol free one, there’s another winemaking method on the rise that produces wines with a reduced alcohol content. We call them ‘lower’ alcohol wines at VW, as they typically sit around 5.5 – 10% ABV. Much too high to be classified as ‘low alcohol’, yet considerably lower than your standard wine. Unlike the process for low ABV wines, where extra steps are added at the end of wine production to remove alcohol, the process for making these lower alcohol wines starts in the vineyard.

A ripe, juicy grape will be full of natural sugars, and it’s these sugars that are turned into alcohol during the winemaking process. So, to achieve a wine that ends up having a lower alcohol content than unusual (without use of any wizardry in the winery), the winemaker needs to pick grapes that contain less sugar. These can either be unripe grapes that have simply not had enough time in the sunshine to develop sweetness, or grapes from vines where leaves were removed to slow the plant’s sugar-making ability.

And so, with a degree of calculation (and a leap of faith), the winemaker chooses a date to harvest the grapes, in the hope that the sugar level in the underdeveloped fruit will be just right at that time.

The wine is made as usual, but the fact that unripe fruit was used means there will be much less sugar to ferment into alcohol than there’d normally be. Usually during fermentation, yeast is used to convert all of the fruit sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol, resulting in a wine ranging between 11 and 14.5% ABV. This time, however, the fermentation is much quicker due to the lack of sugar in the juice, and can result in a wine with an ABV as low as 5.5%.

Some winemakers may also choose to use a low ethanol-producing yeast during fermentation to stunt alcohol production even further.

The winemaker can bottle their wine, proudly stating the ABV level they have achieved on the label. They may not be able to claim that the wine is ‘low alcohol’, but if you’re armed with the knowledge that a standard wine will be over 11%, you can spot one of these lower ABV, guilt-free beauties with a quick glance at the wine label.