Although wine accounts for a relatively small percentage of that market, with beer and spirits taking up the lion’s share, big names and smaller independents have leapt in with great gusto globally. Not so much in England and Wales, yet, which is perhaps unsurprising given the significant technical challenges that making a high quality alcohol-free wine pose.
The methodology
Demand has reportedly been rising across the year. Low and no-alcohol products are now selling well year round, rather than just in the traditional windows of Dry January and Sober October.
What growth there has been is thanks to the evolution of the production and technology – which has improved the overall quality astronomically over recent years.
There are a number of methods used to make wines with low or no alcohol. At first, these methods were clumsy, as a lot of the aromas and body of the wine were stripped away along with the alcohol. But the processes have now been greatly improved.
Of course, the main difficulty is ensuring that the wine is properly calibrated after the alcohol is removed. Alcohol, at whatever level, is an important sensory ingredient in wine as we know it. Reconstructing a familiar and desirable profile of aroma, weight and mouthfeel is a fine art, particularly without using excessive sugar or artificial additions.
Reverse osmosis
This process passes wine through a semipermeable membrane at pressure. Since water and ethanol are the smallest molecules in the liquid, they pass through the filter most easily, along with some acids. Most elements, like pigment, polyphenols and tannin are stopped by the filter. This process occurs in a closed circuit, so the wine passes continuously through the membrane until the desired level of alcohol is reached.
The resulting mixture of water and alcohol is distilled to separate out the alcohol. The water is recombined with all of the other elements, creating a wine with reduced alcohol.
Some studies suggest that there is no negative effect on the main aroma compounds of the wine when using reverse osmosis. Others suggest a significant change in the sensory qualities of the wine after the alcohol removal process.
Vacuum distillation
The cost of installing a vacuum distillation system is a degree lower than the equipment required for reverse osmosis, but it is more expensive to run. The vacuum created lowers the boiling point of the liquid so that the alcohol evaporates out at a much lower temperature – around 35°C. This makes for a gentler treatment of the wine aimed at retaining the flavour and aroma unchanged while removing the alcohol.
As with reverse osmosis, some proponents claim that vacuum distillation gives a “true to taste” result, while others are more cynical, suggesting that there is still a certain degree of aroma, and particularly freshness, that comes from heating the wine – however gently.
Vacuum distillation is a common approach for making low and no alcohol wines. The popular 0.0% wines in the Noughty range from Thomson & Scott are made using this method, for example.
Spinning cone
In the early nineties, the Spinning Cone Column was developed to use centrifugal force in conjunction with vacuum distillation to remove volatile aromatic compounds. The remaining liquid is then distilled at a higher temperature on a second pass to remove the alcohol before the two parts are recombined. Here, the alcohol can be retained for other uses.
That technique has since been refined by makers ConeTech, who have introduced GoLo – a single step process that allows for dealcoholisation using a very low temperature distillation. This preserved the subtle aromatics without the need for multiple passes through the cones.
Low labelling
The increased demand for low and no alcohol products has been welcomed by the government as a sign that more people wish to moderate their alcohol consumption. In turn, they are working to stimulate product development in this area through use of legislation.
The rules on the production and marketing in GB of partially de-alcoholised and de-alcoholised wine have not changed. As such, drinks with an ABV of less than 8.5% (or 4,5% if that wine has a Protected Designation of Origin or Protected Geographical Indication) currently cannot be labelled as wine and should be labelled as a “wine-based drink, or something similar ”.
The Government is keen for consumers to have access to clear information on the bottle about how much alcohol each product contains and so earlier in 2024 DEFRA consulted on various wine reforms, which included proposals that would allow for the production and marketing for partially de-alcoholised and de-alcoholised wine. DEFRA are currently considering feedback from this consultation and will issue a response in due course.
Some areas under consideration are wine terminology such as “‘Partially de-alcoholised’ and ‘reduced alcohol’ wine. DEFRA are proposing that a wine using terminology such as ‘partially de-alcoholised’ or ‘reduced alcohol’ etc, should have no more than 8.5% alcohol by volume (abv) when marketed. DEFRA are also proposing that these wines will be required to have had at least 30% of their alcohol removed compared with their original levels to qualify to use this terminology.
The government has separately consulted on no and low alcohol labelling guidance, including the maximum level of alcohol that can be present in products claiming to be alcohol free, and whether de-alcoholised should be used as a marker for alcoholic strength. The Department for Health and Social Care is now considering responses, with values of 0.05% or 0.5% abv under consideration for use of the term ‘alcohol free’. We intend to set the level of alcohol and descriptors for wine that are consistent with broader government policy.”
Research in the field
As we’ve seen, there are significant drawbacks and difficulties to producing low and no alcohol wines, which is probably why there are so few English and Welsh producers yet to take the plunge. However, the demand is well documented, leading to the National Institute of Agricultural Botany to lead the way on research into creating high quality alcohol-free wines here in England and Wales.
“With increasing consumption of alcohol-free drinks, there is a significant market need for an alcohol-free wine. NIAB is working with The HWB Group who have successfully introduced over 50 beverage brands over 20 years, to create the first UK-based alcohol-free wine,” said Scott Raffle, Knowledge Exchange Manager NIAB.
“Together they are exploring innovative fermentation and de-alcoholisation techniques using locally sourced produce from Kent. The vision goes beyond tradition, incorporating cutting-edge technologies and know-how to deliver a refined de-alcoholisation process that preserves the intrinsic character of the fruit,” said Scott.
The Zeno story
Zeno is a British wine company using Spanish base wines to make what they describe as “alcohol-liberated” non-alcoholic wines. They are made using the GoLo process.
Stocked in Waitrose since December 2022, their wines have been turning heads and winning awards for the last few years as this new start up has found its feet and found a market for its flavourful products. They are looking to take alcohol free wine in a whole new direction. Founder and CEO David Hodgson told Vineyard Magazine their story.
How did Zeno begin?
I was at a trade show in Helsinki with Will [Willis, Zeno co-founder and commercial director]. We were both representing traditional wine brands. We had a great time because our tables were relatively near each other. I’d been doing some research on alcohol free, because I was watching the brewers and I told Will I thought there’s something really happening in the alcohol free sector – but wondered why can’t anyone make a decent alcohol free wine?
I’d been buying them online and in the supermarket. They were so sweet, it was just awful. I said, I wonder how hard it is? And we just looked at each other and said, let’s have a look at it. And just over three years later, we launched Zeno.
Will’s got a background in fine wines, he’s got a killer palate and he’s really good technically, whereas I was interested in drinking less or just eliminating alcohol. I had 25 years in the traditional wine trade. I’d say I’ve had enough drinking for five lifetimes really. So I took the plunge and stopped drinking alcohol to be a really authentic part of the research. I suddenly had basically nothing to drink that I could enjoy. But it really drove me, it was a bit selfish, to want to be able to have a good glass of wine.
How did you approach making a “decent alcohol free wine”?
The big brands have a job to do and they want to get their toes into it because the category has such a great growth trajectory – they need to show their shareholders that they’re represented in it. The issue is that there are a lot of commercial alcohol free wines out there that are just propped up with sugar and they use the more unloved tanks in the winery. We are coming from completely the opposite direction. We started with the product first. We use the best baselines, the best organic products we can.
We were absolutely determined to not rely on sweetness and sugar to fill in the gaps on the palate. We wanted to make wines that were true to their place. And we both knew Jane Masters MW. I’d worked with her in traditional wine when I was in Australia. We knew that she was a qualified chemist as well as an oenologist, and a Master of Wine. She came in to direct the technical side.
I wanted to find the best dealcoholization partner that we could. From my research it was Bev Zero. I approached them to do a qualitative project – they were reducing the alcohol in tankers of wine, ticking the analysis and sending it back. But I wanted them to partner us, making something really quality driven. I’m really happy to say that only a few years later it is part of their businesses to do white labelling for wine producers. And that’s sort of on the back of us.
We went to their plant in Spain, which covers all of Europe for them. We went through the whole process and we broke it down then put it back together to see how we could make the output wines better. They were so helpful.
Then we were hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns. That really affected us because we were working remotely, working with Bev Zero in Spain and sending trial samples across. We had Brexit customs issues as well. They didn’t know what to do with them so they got stuck. And when they arrived we had a few good ones and a few that were fizzing away!
We started to get disheartened because we weren’t able to do it remotely. We needed to be in the winery. Will had been working with a winery in Castilla Mancha, which is very near Bev Zero. It’s fantastic logistically because when we are moving bulk wines around, they’re only travelling an hour. The winery is close and they know the Bev Zero team – the stars aligned for us so many times.
We were allocated a winemaker who really gets what we’re doing and is really engaged. Their resources are fantastic. It’s a single organic vineyard called La Carrasca that we source all of the Zeno wines from. We’re one of the only true estate alcohol free wine brands and that makes a big difference. And on the back of that we have one team working from vineyard to glass on our wines and that’s terrific.
Do you think we will see more UK winemakers moving into low and no alcohol products?
There’s not a great deal of infrastructure in the UK and I think it just doesn’t make sense logistically to be taking local base wines over to Spain. But that could change as the demand grows.
Looking at the fantastic wines that are coming out of the UK I would love to experiment with some of them and see how they would work with the techniques that we’ve come up with and see how a UK one would work.
I’d love to see British winemakers actually take that step for themselves, but it may not be the right time yet. But the quality would be really interesting. Looking at the structure of the wines they’re making; the aromatics and acidity. The alcohol free segment overall is growing at a great trajectory, but we’re still on a really small base. It is up to us as brands to collectively keep really delivering and getting sips to lips.
What does the future hold?
We started off with three SKUs: the white, red and sparkling. You can’t please all of the population with that. So as we extend we’ll be releasing more varietals. We’re working on a very exciting project at the moment, which is the next level up. We’ll be leading with a red wine, which will be Tempranillo based. And the wine is actually in barrel at the moment. We’re looking at a Crianza style that’s really gastronomy focused. Big, layered, with lashings of smoke. That’s really exciting because no one’s done it yet.
We’re working with Bev Zero on this next level red. They will do benchtop analysis on the best way to nurture that oak complexity and all the layering that ageing and oak gives.
The core wines that we have out at the moment, we’re working on making them better at each bottling and reducing the sugars. We’re always talking about what we can do to increase sophistication and reduce sugar. We’re really pleased with the latest release. Zeno wines started at around the 28g per litre mark. We’ve been ratcheting down every time we bottle. The 2023 white is down to 18g per litre.
It takes so much work with texturizing and balancing in the winery lab to make sure they’re the right structure for us. This is where Jane is so handy because she can interpret what we wanted in scientific speak to the winery, to the laboratory.
We envisage the day when the customer is asked if they’d like their wine “with or without alcohol” and that choice can be made without compromise.
Will Willis and David Hodgson
