In honour(?) of Dry January, and the fact that my semi-regular / occasional tasting companions suggested this, I decided to do a review of a non-alcoholic wine.
I ended up with this, a non-alcoholic sparkling wine simply because it was the only non-alcoholic wine that my local Co-op had in stock, and I didn’t feel like wandering the mean streets of Cambridge in search of other options.
In light of this experiment (read on) I may or may not do another non-alcoholic wine. Or maybe a vegan one, since it is also Veganuary, apparently.
In the glass
Looks like prosecco, colour-wise, more or less. Pale to medium lemon. Lots of initial mousse, with two types of bubbles. The first are fine, from the wine itself, and quickly dissipate. The others are larger and form on contact with the glass. These hang around a bit longer.
The nose
Not a thing. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep coming up with different ways of saying this?)
The palate
Lemony. Very lemony. Fizzy. Sweet. It’s much more like lemonade (note to American readers, if any: no, not that, think of something like Sprite) or sparkling water with lemon cordial added than prosecco. It’s lemon, with a possible hint of grape-ness.
Basically, it’s lemonade with some acidity.
It’s not bad as a drink, although not something I’d want to drink lots of. But as a sparking wine? I’ll pass.
The back label has it about right: ‘Aerated flavoured drink based on de-alcholised wine’
Rating
Umm overall. Visual – It’s Wine.
Sustainability
No info, and highly doubtful. It is vegan, though.
The technical info
0.5% ABV. Yes, grapes were apparently used at some point. £3.75 from Co-op.
The bottle just says ‘de-alcoholised wine (EU)’
The other stuff
Why? This is what I’m left wondering. Let me be clear – I have no problem with people not drinking alcohol. But this? It’s so unlike what it is trying to be, I just can’t see the point. If I wanted something like this, I’d just drink lemonade, or add some flavour to fizzy water.
It leaves me wondering if I’d more (slightly) more impressed with a no-alcohol still wine. I’m sure the carbonation after de-alcoholising this example doesn’t help. But then again, given the ingredients list on most non-alcoholic still wines, I am not so sure.