The Difference Between Non-Alcoholic and Dealcoholized Wine

When it comes to enjoying wine without the effects of alcohol, two terms often come up: non-alcoholic wine and dealcoholized wine. While they might seem interchangeable, they actually refer to different products with distinct production methods and taste profiles.

Here’s a detailed breakdown to help you understand the differences.

What is Dealcoholized Wine?

Dealcoholized wine starts off as regular, fully fermented wine with typical alcohol content (usually 7%-24% ABV). After fermentation, the alcohol is removed through specialized techniques such as vacuum distillation, reverse osmosis, or spinning cone technology. These methods carefully extract the ethanol while preserving much of the wine’s original aromas, flavours, and polyphenols, the compounds responsible for wine’s complexity and texture.

Because dealcoholized wine begins as traditional wine, it retains a complex, dry, and aromatic profile closer to what you expect from regular wine. It tends to have less residual sugar, so it is less sweet and more nuanced than non-alcoholic alternatives.

Dealcoholized typically contains less than 0.5% ABV, which is low enough to be considered non-intoxicating and often labelled as “dealcoholized” or “non-alcoholic”, depending on regulations. These wines are suitable for those who want the wine experience without alcohol-whether for health, pregnancy, or sobriety reasons. It can also be used in cooking as a substitute for regular wine.

What is Non-Alcoholic Wine?

Non-alcoholic wine is a broader and sometimes ambiguous category. It generally refers to wine-like beverages that have no alcohol, but the way they are made can differ.

Some non-alcoholic wines are produced by interrupting fermentation so that very little alcohol is produced in the first place.

Other products labelled as non-alcoholic wine may not be fermented at all and are closer to grape juice or “wine alternatives.” While many of these lack the depth and flavour complexity of true wine and are sometimes sweetened or flavoured with additives to mimic wine taste, you do find traditional winemakers playing in this area and taking the care with their non-alcohol wines that mirror the care they take with their traditional line of wines. In these cases, the winemaker will infuse the juice with differing botanicals to bolster structure and flavour profile. Here, the non-alcoholic wine becomes an impressive bottling for those looking to limit alcohol and will even come off as an intriguing beverage for your general wine drinker.

If you are looking for a wine alternative for religious reasons, you will want to look for non-alcoholic wines that have been made in the 'verjus' style, meaning it saw no alcohol producing fermentation.

I support stronger regulations in the use of the terms dealcoholized and non-alcoholic wines to ease consumer choices. As the terms on face value represent, I believe dealcoholized wines should be those that have gone through some fermentation where alcohol was produced and later removed from the wine. Whereas non-alcohol should be the label used for wines that have not gone through fermentation and no chance for alcohol to be formed. Regulations such as this would make it easier for those making decisions around limiting alcohol much easier. With that said, the phenomenon of dealc and non-alc wines represents a new demand for the industry, so it is not surprising that these labelling stipulations are not strongly enforced. However, as demand rises for these types of wines, labelling standardization is not a matter of if, but when.