It’s been drained of personality.
Zero percent beer has become better and better and a more than acceptable alternative to alcoholic beers. But Vintners are in no rush to join the party.
A few weeks ago, I took a bottle of non-alcoholic wine, along with other wines, to a supper. Our host decanted an excellent claret, and I poured my non-alcoholic wine. I quickly realized my mistake.
On reflection I had been ludicrously optimistic.
The red Bordeaux had weight, texture, and a complexity of flavour that evolved throughout the evening. The non-alcoholic ‘concoction’ tasted like a homemade medicinal damson juice.
Why is good or even great non-alcoholic wine so difficult to find?
At a time when brewers are creating all manner of drinkable, impressive and credible non or low alcoholic brews most wines without alcohol are a non-event.
If you’ve been lucky enough to visit a winery, you’ll find a clue as to why. The vast majority of winemakers are simply not interested. They don’t see wine as a poison, something toxic to be given up like tobacco or sugar, but something to be celebrated and enjoyed in moderation.
As one wine maker recently said; ‘Wine is wonderfully attuned to the human race to both banish care and aid digestion. Wine is not a drink but a way of life, of culture, civilisation and a sacred and ancient companion’.
Unlike beer and spirits wine is an agricultural product. Its unique appeal is that every bottle is made from grapes grown on a vineyard. Winemakers not only have to make the wine, they have to tend the vines over many months while the grapes grow. By the time of the harvest the wine maker will have gone through an emotional roller coaster of frost, drought, rain and disease.
Come October (or April for the southern hemisphere) when all the grapes have been picked the winemaker then has to focus on making wine. The process of making wine is so complex would it not be the ruination of the wine to perform de-alcolisation? What would Louis Latour, Dom Perignon or Mr.Penfold think?
There are a variety of mechanical methods used to lower or remove alcohol from wine. But are you not then left with a thin liquid that lacks ‘body’. This is essentially the weight and texture of a wine in your mouth. The wine has been stripped of its personality.
I’m in favour of reduced alcohol and moderation but only when it works. I once sent my mother a bottle of non-alcoholic wine to try. ‘I didn’t like it, was her response, what’s the point’. Quite.