What Does Non-Alcoholic Wine Taste Like?
There are some types of alcohol that you don’t really drink for the taste, but wine is most certainly not one of them. Wine connoisseurs know that there’s a wine for everything, and they’re always ready to break out the perfect bottle.
However, those looking to embrace a more sober-curious lifestyle may wonder whether non-alcoholic wines can work the same way. What does non-alcoholic wine taste like? Just like any other wine, the answer can vary due to a lot of reasons.
What Does Non-Alcoholic Wine Taste Like?
How non-alcoholic wine tastes depends on a couple of factors. The biggest one is how the wine is made.
There are two types of non-alcoholic wine. The first is simply grape juice that’s not fermented. It doesn’t taste much different from grape juice because it doesn’t develop the characteristics one would expect from wine.
The second and much more popular option is dealcoholized wine. Dealcoholized wine starts its life just like any other wine, being allowed to ferment, which is what helps it develop both its alcohol content and the characteristics one would expect from wine. Those rich flavors and delicate aromas don’t just come from the grape alone but rather from allowing the grapes to mature and develop in complexity.
Dealcoholized wine is much more likely to taste like, well, wine, which means that the taste is going to vary by the type of wine it started its life as. For instance, BEAU VIVA is a rosé-style non-alcoholic sparkling wine. BEAU VIVA mainly uses Colombard grapes, one of the most aromatic grape varieties, while adding a hint of Merlot creates additional depth and richness. The result is a wine rich in red fruit flavor, with a bite of citrus that gives it an extra kick.
However, the dealcoholization method used by the winemaker can also affect the final flavor of a dealcoholized wine. Some dealcoholization methods can preserve the flavors and aromas of a wine, but others end up changing the wine’s quality.
A method like reverse osmosis, for example, isn’t very sustainable for large-scale wine production, due to the need to add water to do the process properly. While this process isn’t particularly environmentally friendly, it’s also not legal in many winemaking countries. Even if it was, though, many winemakers still wouldn’t rely on it, as it takes many passes through a membrane for the wine to see any reduction in alcohol content.
It’s no wonder, then, that many people believe reverse osmosis degrades the quality of the wine, resulting in a taste and consistency that’s not what one would want from their wine.
Winemakers have been working on improving dealcoholization methods so that this kind of degradation doesn’t happen, and one of the most popular options today is the vacuum distillation method.
With this method, alcoholized wine is placed in a vacuum chamber, where the pressure then decreases, making the boiling point of alcohol drop considerably. This drop makes the alcohol evaporate out at much lower temperatures.
Because the alcohol doesn’t need to be as hot as it typically would to evaporate, the wine better retains its flavors and aromas. Some argue that vacuum distillation is one of the most effective ways to remove alcohol from wine, as research shows that vacuum distillation causes a greater reduction in alcohol than other methods of dealcoholization while actually increasing the concentration of other essential components of wine, like flavonoids.
BEAU VIVA uses vacuum distillation to remove alcohol from our non-alcoholic sparkling wine. By using vacuum distillation, we’re able to reduce the wine’s alcohol content to a true 0% ABV while keeping the wine’s delicate characteristics.
Another factor in a non-alcoholic wine’s taste is its sweetness. Since the grapes that make up wine, non-alcoholic or otherwise, naturally have sugar, there’s always going to be some sugar content in wine.
During the fermentation stage, yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes, which produces ethanol and carbon dioxide. The yeast will either eat all the sugar, or it’s eventually removed, resulting in there still being sugar in the wine, called residual sugar. Generally, wine high in residual sugar is low in alcohol, and vice versa. Some winemakers may also add additional sugar or other sweeteners to offset some of the flavors that may have been lost in the dealcoholization process. This may be why some people find non-alcoholic wine to be somewhat sweeter than alcoholized wine.
Those looking for a less sweet non-alcoholic wine should look for those without any added sugars or sweeteners, like BEAU VIVA. Because BEAU VIVA carefully controls the wine quality throughout the dealcoholization process, we want to highlight the wine’s natural tastes, rather than hiding it behind additives. After the dealcoholization process ends, the only thing that’s added to BEAU VIVA is a steady stream of bubbles that turns it into sparkling wine.
Rethink Non-Alcoholic Wine With BEAU VIVA
Non-alcoholic wine, just like any other wine, doesn’t all taste the same. Sugar content, grape varietal, and fermentation time and method can all affect how wines taste, and for non-alcoholic wine, the dealcoholization method can also affect wine flavors and aromas.
BEAU VIVA carefully preserves the wine’s natural flavors, with an effective dealcoholization method and no added sugars or sweeteners. It tastes like a rosé-style wine because that’s exactly what it is—just with a 0% ABV. As delicate bubbles dance on the tongue, rich flavors of ripe red fruits and citrus sing out in perfect harmony.
Discover a non-alcoholic wine that tastes like wine: BEAU VIVA.
