Wine

The Non-Alcoholic Guide

BY CARA STRICKLAND

There is perhaps nothing so quintessential in the alcohol world as a glass of wine—something sparkling for a toast, a summery glass of rosé or a crisp white on a patio, a swirl of red over dinner in the evening. Thankfully, there are a large range of non alcoholic options, which only seem to be growing in both style, varietal, and level of excellence.

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Sparkling Wine

In my opinion, non-alcoholic sparkling wine is the absolute best of the wine category. I found so many new favorites here, including ones that I and my panel found indistinguishable from the alcoholic variety. These are great straight as well as for mixing (I use one of those inexpensive sparkling wine saver caps). My NA tip: if you don’t have tonic, or don’t want to open it just to make one drink, add a little sparkling wine to soda for something that tastes surprisingly like tonic.

Goodvines Sparkling Riesling

This wine is tart with lots of acid. It’s off dry with high carbonation.

Grüvi Dry Secco

This one has strong pear notes with lots of acid. Lightly sweet. We would have liked it to have slightly more bubbles. While we enjoyed the taste, this didn’t seem like sparkling wine to us.

When I tried a second bottle later, I found it very dry, without much sweetness at all, which was delightful, with a much more sparkling wine like flavor profile. It also was the perfect mixer with Figlia Fiore.

Lautus Sparkling Brut

This was a favorite of our panel. It is dry, but not bone dry with lots of character and complexity. It had some very light sweetness in the middle but a dry finish. We found it to drink like a brut sparkling wine.

Jøyus Sparkling Wine

This wine has a tart beginning but mellows quickly in the mouth. Even though this is fairly dry, there are a lot of stone fruit flavors which bring the quality of sweetness. It finished tart on the end, pleasantly so.

No & Low Sparkling Chardonnay

The panel agreed that this wine doesn’t taste non-alcoholic. It’s almost spicy in the middle with a richness in the mouth. It’s very lightly sweet, but still dry, and it doesn’t have a bitter character.

Studio Null Sparkling Verdejo

This has a great flavor and at first seemed lightly off dry, but seemed to get drier the more I sipped it. Sparkling, it seems perfect for summer. I did end up trying some of this when it was mostly flat and found the wine base itself to be delicious and complex.

Noughty Sparkling Chardonnay

This wine has a great smell and a good amount of bubbles. We found it dry and light, without as much bitterness as alcoholic sparkling wine. It has a fruity character, but without a fruit coming to the fore. Some members of the panel noted an aftertaste they weren’t sure about, but others did not. I found it to finish slightly sour, not unpleasantly.

White Wine

Our panel found white wine to be another strong NA category. As in other NA wine categories, there are some that drink very true to varietal, and others that are delicious, but don’t match up to the alcoholic version we expected. Some of these unexpected surprises, in all categories, ended up being favorites.

Giesen Riesling

The panel found this to be a spot-on Riesling, off dry and crisp in all the right ways.

Giesen Pinot Grigio

We found this wine to have an almost lime characteristic when first opened, but it mellowed into a fruity wine that we thought would be perfect for a summer day with some hints of apricot. Very, very lightly off-dry, but I hesitate to call it sweet.

Giesen Sauvignon Blanc

This wine is has a wonderful smell and lemon notes. At first it had almost a sour beer characteristic, but after a bit of time, it opened up to reveal a classic flavor. It’s not sweet, but crisp and tart. On the lemony citrus side of New Zealand sauvignon blanc rather than the honeydew.

Sovi Chenin Blanc 2021 Vintage

Some members of our panel expected a bit more oak, based on the varietal, but it was a very drinkable white with a different characteristic and texture than a lot of the whites we tried. It approaches more of a steel barrel chardonnay.

Goodvines White Glühwein

This was a panel favorite. Essentially, it’s a mulled white wine, which is fairly uncommon in the US (even in the alcoholic form) but much more common in Germany, where this wine is made. We drank it lightly chilled, but you can gently warm it. It’s fairly sweet, but complex, with all the spices you expect from mulled wine. The white wine makes the whole experience seem lighter.

Rosé Wine

There are two fairly distinct styles of rosé: dry and minerally, and fruity and almost buttery. We did our best to give you a sense of which style these fall into.

Lautus Rosé

This wine is on the sweeter side with a jammy characteristic. There was a strange initial scent we couldn’t place that did eventually settle down.

Giesen Rosé

We found this version to be a bit astringent and yet not as flavorful as we would like at first. However, like many of the wines we tried, once it opened up, it was a nice almost totally dry rosé with a mineral characteristic and a strawberry finish.

Lautus Rosé
Giesen Rosé
Fre Rosé
Jøyus Rosé
Goodvines Merlot Rosé

Red Wine

Red wine is one of those categories of non-alcoholic beverage that it is very difficult to get just right. Many of these below wines are beloved, and the great news is that though they lose their alcohol, they retain all their health benefits. Another tip, courtesy of Ian Blessing of All The Bitter and his non-alcoholic community: some non-alcoholic wines that seem a little flat can benefit from adding a dash or two of bitters (not just red wine, either). It can add to the complexity and make it taste a little more like the alcoholic version. Another way to set yourself up for success with reds is to open them early, even the previous day, or decant, anything to increase the aeration and open them up. If you do find that a wine doesn’t suit your style, don’t pour it out—mull it, make a sangria, or make it into a sorbet or an ice pop, which won’t struggle so much as an alcoholic one at the freezing stage. If very pressed, consider wine ice cubes to cook with.

Grüvi Dry Red Blend

We got notes of berry pie from this. The panel felt that it had notes of cherry juice or mixed berry runoff. It was very tart.

Lautus Savvy Red

This wine was very polarizing. It has initial notes of tobacco and leather (this one definitely needs to be decanted or otherwise aerated). Some of us were put off by those initial strong flavors, but they did mellow. This was a favorite red of part of the panel, with a light body comparable to a Zinfandel, but with good structure and tannin.

Goodvines Red Glühwein

This is the red version of the Glühwein, or spiced wine, and we found it delightful and festive, spiced, but not overwhelmingly so, just as you would hope. Goodvines does recommend heating this one as well, but we also enjoyed it at room temperature.

Fre Cabernet Sauvignon

We found this wine to be on the oaky side and tart, though the oak does diminish a bit with aeration and time. It was one of the wines that came closer to hitting the mark for us. Several of us would drink a glass of this one.

Noughty Syrah

We found this one to be oaky and very tart initially. When it began to open up, the tartness mellowed slightly and it was possible to taste a bit more depth. It’s a smooth wine but does have some tannin and texture, and it’s nice and dry. This was a panel favorite.

Studio Null Solo Garnacha

We found this wine to be tart and juicy immediately, but the rest of the sip didn’t develop as we would have liked. There was some flatness and bitterness which were disappointing. However, as with so many of these, this was much better the next day, losing the tartness and giving us a light-bodied red.

Sovi Reserve Red

The panel agreed that this one is approaching an alcoholic red wine experience. We found it had more body than some of the reds we tried. After it had spent some time open, it began to taste like a Zinfandel, or even a very light Malbec. There were some tannins and structure and once it opened up, it was sippable on its own.

Jøyus Cabernet Sauvignon

Initially this wine was very tart, almost like a sweet tart. When it began to aerate, it developed a floral nose and flavor and a very faint sweetness. It’s smooth, still with some tartness and is light bodied without a large amount of tannin.