Sue and I continue exploring the world of non-alcoholic (or alcohol-removed) wines. NA wine is one of the few growing categories of wine (if it is wine — see below), so it makes sense to see what’s going on. That’s especially true since NA beer and spirits are booming, too. Here is our report, which examines NA wine from three perspectives.

On Trade: What Does an NA Wine Bar Look Like?

It has become easy to order non-alcoholic beer at a bar or restaurant — there is almost always at least one NA beer option available — and NA cocktails (a.k.a. mocktails) are ubiquitous. But NA wine remains hard to find (at least for us) in on-trade settings. I wonder what an NA wine bar would look like and who would go there?

I stumbled on the answer to this question a few weeks ago when I was researching French Bloom, the upscale line of NA wines that caught the eye of  LVMH, the French luxury conglomerate. French Bloom is in limited distribution at this stage and the website features a map of the world to guide you to on- and off-trade points of sale. I was surprised to discover that one of the relatively few U.S. sellers was just a few miles from The Wine Economist world headquarters in Tacoma, Washington.

Soulberry Coffee House and Dry Speakeasy is located about mid-way between the University of Washington/Tacoma campus and the Tacoma Dome district. It is a warm, inviting space that sort of reminds me of a cross between the family pubs that we knew when we lived in England and the original Starbucks concept of the “third space” that’s neither home nor workplace.  Soulberry bills itself as an “all-ages after-hours safe space” and that seems pretty accurate.

Soulberry’s owner, Terri Quintana-Jessen, says that she’s a coffee roaster, but Sue and I quickly noticed how much she talked about community and relationships. Coffee brings people together, which must be one of the reasons she is so interested in it. Wine brings people together, too, but alcohol can keep people apart.

Because NA wine is NA, selling and serving it doesn’t come with the burdens and regulations that must be considered for alcoholic beverages. Terri studied up on NA wine, spirits, and beer, and soon her coffee shop was also a bottle shop and “dry speakeasy” featuring a rotating selection of almost 40 NA cocktails. The French Bloom is popular as the base for Sunday mimosas and NA French 75s.

Soulberry is not alone. Dry wine and spirits bars and popping up much as natural wine bars did a few years ago. Is there a NA wine bar in your town? Maybe there is and, like me, you just didn’t know it.

Is NA Wine Really Wine?

Is non-alcoholic wine really wine? I know from previous columns that many readers believe that wine isn’t wine without alcohol. Studies have even shown that some consumers base their buying decisions on the amount of alcohol they can get for their money (more is better!). It is certainly the case that fermentation (which produces alcohol) is necessary for the transformation of juice into wine. But, once alcohol is removed, is the resulting product still wine?

Although opinions may vary, the use of the term “wine” is defined by regulations and therefore differs in different jurisdictions. Some producers are keen to call their NA products wine because they see a market opportunity. With sales of full-strength stagnant or falling, it makes sense to go after a share of the growing NA beverage market. But other producers think it important to defend the term “wine” from being debased or diluted, which might be a slippery slope.

It is interesting to observe the evolution of this debate in Italy, where it has been illegal to affix the name “wine” to anything with less than 8 percent abv. As Wein.plus reported a few weeks ago, The Italian Ministry of Agriculture has recently revised its regulations to allow de-alcoholized wines to use the term “wine,” but not for wines with protected designations. So you can have NA red wine from Tuscany, but not NA Chianti because Chianti is a protected appellation. This explains why the NA Mionetto wine that we found at Total Wine was labeled “sparkling non-alcoholic wine” and not “NA Prosecco.” Of course, the Mionetto brand is so closely connected to Prosecco that a mental association is almost impossible to avoid.

Before the new ruling, Italian winemakers could only call their NA products wine for export purposes. The use of “wine” was reserved for alcoholic wine at home. NA wine regulations are evolving with different interests pushing to liberalize the rules and others pushing back. But the question — is it really wine? — is ultimately up to you to decide.

That said, the OIV recently highlighted its work on dealcoholization of wine, which dates back to a 2012 resolution. The January 8, 2025, press release explains that,

Adopted in 2012 at the 35th World Congress of Vine and Wine in Izmir, Türkiye, OIV-OENO 394A-2012 “Dealcoholisation of wines” includes prescriptions to obtain vitivinicultural products with a reduced or low alcohol content through partial vacuum evaporation, membrane techniques, and distillation. It also specifies that this process must not be used on wines with any organoleptic defects and must be overseen by an oenologist or specialized technician.

The OIV’s framework for wine dealcoholisation provides producers with tools to innovate while navigating technical and market complexities. This progression supports the industry’s goal of quality and authenticity in a changing consumer landscape.

Can NA Wine Pass the “Second Glass Test”?

Sue and I have been trying NA wines and putting them to the “Second Glass Test.” We ask that NA wines (1) remind us of the wines that they represent and (2) be tasty enough that we would welcome a second glass. Our early research was full of failures. Either the wines didn’t remind us of the alcoholic version or they just weren’t to our taste. Often they were flat, lacking the fruit or aroma that were lost in the de-alcoholization process.

That Mionetto sparkler mentioned above did pretty well in the “Second Glass Test,” for example. It reminded us of Prosecco in a general way (could have done with a little more fruit and acidity), but was very nice to drink and was priced in the general range of Mionetto’s regular sparkling wines. We finished the bottle over dinner. The bubbles in NA sparkling wine come from carbonation, not the fermentation process, and in general we’ve found them to be more successful than still NA wines.

Recently Sue and I have been testing NA wines from Chavin Zéro, a French winery that has been in this business since 2010. The wines are being introduced in the U.S. market now by importer Kobrand. These NA wines were created to solve the same problem as French Bloom: what’s a wine lover to drink when she’s pregnant?

Pierre Chavin makes wines in France including a line of NA wines called Chavin Zèro. We focused on two still wines from Chavin Zéro, a Rosé and a Sauvignon Blanc. The Sauvignon Blanc came first and Sue declared it to be probably the best NA still wine we’ve tried so far even though it didn’t line up with our idea of Sauvignon Blanc. (To be fair, there is no universal definition of how a Sauvignon Blanc should taste and smell.) But it was very nice to drink and had better than average fruit and mouthfeel, probably because it contains 12 percent grape juice (concentrated grape must). We’ll add it to our list.

We were intrigued by the very pale pink Chavin Zèro Rosé, which features both an attractive bottle and an interesting blend of Cinsault, Syrah, and Grenache grapes. It was probably the most interesting and confusing wine we have tried so far. It was tasty for sure — no problem with the second glass. And it had the aromas, fruit, and mouthfeel that we have been looking for but seldom finding. But it didn’t taste like any Rosé we’ve ever had. The winery’s tasting note said to expect aromas of yellow fruit and white flowers. You don’t see “yellow fruit” very often in wine descriptions. Maybe the flavor was yellow plum? We couldn’t decide. Sue said it was more like wine, and likely was the best in terms of providing the complete package, but it didn’t remind us of Rosé or any other particular wine.

20 Years Behind Beer?

We finally opened the bottle of French Bloom sparkling wine that we bought at the Soulberry bottle shop. As we reported a few weeks ago, this wine has received a lot of press because of a connection to the Taittinger Champagne family and a highly-publicized recent investment by the LVMH wine, spirits, and luxury brands group. Terri at Soulberry said that her customers gave it high marks.

We shared our bottle of the sparkling blend of Chardonnay and a bit of Pinot Noir with two winemaker friends. Sue and I found the French Bloom to be dry and drinkable, but lacking some of the body, fruit, and aroma that we look for but often fail to find in NA wines. It would be a good base for the kinds of NA wine cocktails that Soulberrry serves.

I think we would have been more impressed by French Bloom when we started our research, but now we expect more, especially for the premium $40-plus price.

The NA wine, beer, and spirits category is growing (see graph), albeit from a low base, and there is a lot of research going on. A recent Economist article charts the market changes and suggests that, while NA wine might be 20 years behind the much more successful NA beer category, it might not take 20 years for it to catch up. Fingers crossed that NA wine drinkers (and producers) will find their respective sweet spots soon.