Over lunch at Slanted Door in Napa, Bouchaine winemaker and president Chris Kajani of Carneros is pouring a glass of something new—Bouchaine’s first vintage-dated, estate grown de-alcoholized wine, a 2023 rosé of Pinot Noir. “The 2023 vintage was not a shy vintage,” says Kajani. With a big harvest and a surplus of grapes, they decided to dip their toe into the de-alcoholized category. It’s a good match with Slanted Door’s Vietnamese cuisine, with mineral and saline notes and a touch of watermelon rind on a tight, juicy frame.
“We definitely have people that come [to the tasting room] that are moderating or sober,” Kajani says. “We really see it in events. More and more, they don’t necessarily want to drink a Diet Coke. It's fun for us to be able to offer a wine to folks that are either not drinking or trying to drive back to San Francisco to go somewhere afterward. I liken this to continuing just to be inclusive and having something to offer people who are moderating, sober, curious—whatever it is. We want everybody to feel welcome.”
A growing number of winemakers are moving into the category of de-alcoholized (DA) wines, and it appears the movement is here to stay, especially as the offerings continue to improve and grow. According to data from Impact Databank, a sister publication of Wine Spectator, wines without alcohol are selling at double-digit rates, outperforming other wine types. The total de-alcoholized wine market amounted to more than a million cases sold in the United States in 2024.
Napa vintners Aaron Pott and Stephanie Honig partnered together to create the Missing Thorn lineup of DA wines, including a red, rosé and a sparkling all made from Barbera, and a white wine and sparkling offering made from Albariño. Pott is best known for his classic Napa wines, but with this new project he’s looking to put premium DA wines on the market.
“One of the trends you see is that people drink less, but drink better, right?,” says Honig. “They're not drinking a bunch of crap. So they want [DA wines] to taste good. If you're sitting there drinking something as an alternative that doesn't taste good, what’s the point?”
In addition to startup producers, there are number of established wineries worldwide getting into the DA space, and growing. There’s Giesen in New Zealand, Torres in Spain, Mionetto from Italy, Washington’s Waterbrook, Wolffer in New York, among others. Even larger companies are getting to the game, such as LVMH and its new project, French Bloom.
“There’s lot of doom and gloom around wine right now,” says Daniel Stiller, the CEO and Founder of Better Rhodes, an online retailer of alcohol-free beverages. “But the idea that these people who are drinking non-alc wine are in any way a threat … Here are people who want to drink wine—they really want to drink wine. The only part they don't want is the alcohol part.”
The opportunity for the wine industry is clear. But is there a danger it’s chasing what could be a passing fad? Or is this a trend worth focusing on?
Non-alcoholic (or NA) wines are different from de-alcoholized (or DA) wines, but it’s understandable why the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. NA wines were never fully wines to begin with. They are made from non-wine ingredients like juice, tea or kombucha that are mixed together to form a wine alternative. They aren’t trying to mimic specific wines, but give an approximation to wine. One popular brand, Blurred Vines, makes a sparkling NA called Spark that is a cold-brew botanical blend of guayusa, black and green tea, juice from red currants and strawberries, and fermented apricot and white grape juice concentrates, with botanical extracts of hibiscus, schisandra berry and cayenne pepper and other elements.
DA wines are fermented and then have the alcohol removed. Some prefer the term “alcohol removed” to “de-alcoholized” because it sounds like a gentler approach. Supporters argue that these wines still honor the tradition of winemaking and are closer to the original.
[article-img-container][src=2025-03/ns_chris-kajani-bouchaine-032025_1600.jpg] [caption= Bouchaine president and winemaker Chris Kajani inspects Pinot Noir vines in Carneros.] [credit= (Photo by Brandon McGanty) ] [alt= Bouchaine president and winemaker Chris Kajani inspects Pinot Noir vines.][end: article-img-container]
Brie Wohld, vice president of marketing at Trinchero Family Wines, says there’s an important distinction between the two categories, and the confusion might be intentional. “I think there are players in that space who are using the language ‘non-alcoholic’ when they are just [selling] juice—they haven’t been vinified at any point.”
She adds it’s worthwhile to point out the difference between the products. “Maybe [customers] don’t care,” she says. “But I think there are some consumers who are looking for a true wine-like experience, and so they appreciate the winemaking craft for those products that are de-alcoholized versus just bottled juice with a fancy label.”
How do you de-alcoholize wine? Currently there are three known procedures for alcohol removal: low temperature vacuum distillation or evaporation, reverse osmosis and spinning-cone columns. While all are highly technical and have differences, each has the same main purpose—they separate the wine into different components, including wine, water and other compounds. The alcohol is removed and all of the other compounds are mixed back together.
Because DA wines are not officially categorized as wine, winemakers can use additives that aren’t allowed in traditional wines. And those additives prove necessary because removing the alcohol changes how a wine smells and tastes. Winemakers can add water, juice or natural flavors. DA wines have ingredient and nutritional labels on the back of the bottles, plus a required statement that the wine has less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume. That is the same maximum amount of alcohol that might be found in fruit juices.
Without alcohol to ward off spoilage, these are not products meant to age, and most currently have a two-year shelf life. Removing the alcohol also means significantly fewer calories—about a half to a third of a traditional glass of wine.
DA wines have been around since the 1980s. Hyatt approached J. Lohr Winery in 1984 to come up with a DA alternative for their hotels. Lohr’s answer was Ariel, named for a character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The brand was immediately successful, helped by “the Galloping Gourmet,” Graham Kerr, who featured it on his cooking show. At its height in the 1990s, Ariel made over 100,000 cases annually.
The brand endured some ups and downs. Sales picked up again during COVID—because the wines don’t have alcohol, direct shipping from retailers to customers is not restricted by state laws. To keep up with the new popularity (and premiumization) of the category, Ariel recently underwent a rebranding with a colorful, more modern label.
“These wines are really about health and wellness,” says president and CEO Steve Lohr. “The new label is meant to represent a certain calm sense of nature, a sense of health and a sense of well-being.”
Around the same time Ariel was born, Trinchero Family, owner of Sutter Home, was looking at making DA wines. The winemaking team asked Roger Trinchero for a $1 million budget to import some equipment from Australia for the project. Sutter Home Fre was an extension of the popular, affordable wine brand that was designed to give consumers what they asked for. At first the company put an accent over the e to help people understand to pronounce it “free,” not “fray,” but eventually they dropped the accent and Sutter Home from the label, making Fre a standalone brand.
Sales of Fre had been fairly steady, but recently took off. “Between 2019 and 2024 retail sales grew about 300 percent with an average annual growth rate of 30 percent,” says Wohld.
One of the biggest challenges with DA wines is that the aromatic compounds can get lost in the process. Without the alcohol to make aromatics volatile (and thus easier for our noses to pick up), aromas can seem flat. While ethanol doesn’t have a noticeable flavor, it does contribute the feeling of weight and texture. The balance of acidity and tannins will feel different, as will the sweetness of the grapes.
“You can put the aromatics back in, but they're never to the level that you had them before,” says Pott. “So that really changed the game by [showing] that we needed [to use] aromatic grape varieties to maintain the natural wine flavor.” Pott is among the winemakers that add natural additives to boost the wine’s flavor.
[article-img-container][src=2025-03/ns_aaron-pott-missing-thorn-032025_1600.jpg] [caption= Winemaker Aaron Pott has embraced the challenge of producing de-alcoholized wines that still deliver aromas and texture.] [credit= (Photo by Joshua Hardin) ] [alt= Winemaker Aaron Pott in a vineyard.][end: article-img-container]
“Alcohol is a flavor transporter,” says Stiller from Better Rhodes. “So [removing it is] like taking salt off of food. You can make anything taste good with enough salt and butter. But if you want to make a meal without salt, without butter, you better start with really, really good ingredients.”
In short, DA wines do not taste like traditional wines, but they are adjacent in flavors. “When we’re tasting [traditional] wines, the way alcohol sits on the palate and the way that it creates texture and lingers, those parts of the experience are removed,” says Jennifer Cossey, general manager at Brooks winery in Oregon. “So what you're left with is this expression of the grape. It is still Riesling or Pinot Noir, but it’s an expression of the grape without the bone structure of the alcohol.”
Overall, DA white and rosé wines are closest to their full-alcohol peers. Sparkling DA wines are also very successful, as the carbon dioxide turns up the volume on both aromatics and texture. DA red wines are more of a work in progress. The complexity and depth of a red wine—especially if you are used to bigger, jammy examples—doesn’t translate as well, at least not yet. Overall, DA wines show best when properly chilled, in a wine glass and with food.
“The first thing I say [to someone new to the category] is try a DA Sauvignon Blanc,” says Trinchero’s Wohld. “You can get the most true-to-varietal taste experience from a Sauvignon Blanc.” She adds that wine drinkers should know it’s not going to be the same experience. “This is not going to be exactly the same, perhaps, as a traditional wine, but we're getting pretty darn close, and I think it's certainly close enough in that it will give you the ritual and the experience.”
One of the biggest questions for winemakers adding DA wines to their portfolio is why? Are these designed for non-wine drinkers or wine drinkers who want other options? And will these DA wines damage the market for traditional wines?
What they’re finding is that consumers have many reasons for choosing them, and that DA wines are simply filling an additional niche outside of traditional wines. Some people might be avoiding alcohol for medical reasons or to be a designated driver. Many wine lovers have long practiced drinking a glass of water along with each glass of wine to stay hydrated, but now there’s a trend called “Zebra striping” where people alternate between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks as a way to moderate consumption. With the proliferation of NA and DA wines, they can stay in the same category.
With these products, people can still socialize, participate, learn about wine and pair food and wine. It might not be the full experience of drinking wine, but it’s close.
Don’t forget about pregnant wine lovers who want to keep up with the ritual and culture of wine. “I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, and I would go out to eat,” says Wohld. “It’s a Saturday night. I wanted to have a special beverage that didn't feel like Tuesday. I thought, I cannot drink any more lemonade. There was nothing special about lemonade.”
A DA wine felt more grown up to her. “Somehow, it psychologically signaled this is Saturday and not Tuesday, and that meant something to me.”
With sales of traditional wines down, many feel DA wines are an opportunity to be inclusive and welcoming. DA producers insist they are not a threat to the wine industry, but a way to keep customers engaged in the ritual of wine without abandoning the category.
“We believe wine can be a part of a wonderfully balanced, healthy life,” says Wohld. “I do think this non-alc space is not only not a threat, but an important way that we are signaling to the world that we want to provide solutions, that we are a responsible industry, that we are encouraging consumers of our products to live balanced lives and giving them products to help support that message.”
Honig says, “Are we the bad guys because wine [sales are] down? No, we're keeping people drinking wine. Our competition isn't wine. It’s people that are drinking seltzers or energy drinks or moving over to other things.”
[article-img-container][src=2025-03/ns_stephanie-honig-missing-thorn-032025_1600.jpg] [caption= Stephanie Honig believes wineries should offer consumers multiple options, including de-alcoholized wine.] [credit= (Photo by Adrian Gregorutti) ] [alt= Stephanie Honig in a Napa vineyard.][end: article-img-container]
Cossey, the GM at Brooks winery in Oregon, started offering flights of DA wines made by other producers in their tasting room to complement their own offerings. She notes that her background as a sommelier gave her a chance to see how non-drinkers could be “othered” in dining and tasting rooms. “Having the inclusive experience of a non-alcoholic option is important. They can have the shared experience of a Riesling, a sparkling wine and a Pinot Noir in a wine flight with a glass in front of them.”
Creating an environment that includes non-drinkers, even at wineries, might make economic sense as well. Ariel’s Steve Lohr agrees that DA wines are a way for more people to be included in the fun. “Nobody has to even know there is no alcohol in there, nor is it a big deal. Maybe 30 years ago, there was a tiny bit of shame, a worry that someone would ask you why aren’t you drinking?” He adds, “It’s about inclusivity. This is a way to gather people together.”
One of the most compelling data points is that 93 percent of non-alcoholic beverage buyers are also purchasing alcohol, according to Nielsen data as of June 2024.
When Stiller started Better Rhodes as an online platform with friends, the goal was to offer NA options for people who might be re-evaluating their relationship with alcohol. But instead of selling NA beer to guys like them, they quickly realized they were primarily selling wine alternatives to women ages 25 to 45. He couldn’t ignore the data. He also noticed that as the category evolved, the products just kept getting better and better, in part because consumers were willing to pay premium prices for premium DA products.
Prima Pavé was created by Marco and Dejou Marano, a married couple and wine and hospitality veterans. Dejou was pregnant in 2020. “We just started trying, just experimenting and tasting what [DA wine] was out there,” she says. “And in full candor, I was really not impressed. It was either tasted nothing resembling anything that was once wine, or it was too sugary and tasted like, you know, an adult soda, we'll say.”
So the couple set on a journey making their own wines. They felt the conversation about DA wines focused too much on the technology, not enough on the grapes or provenance. “I think what's going on right now is there's a lot of really cool, slick marketing that goes on with a lot of brands, but people aren't asking the question, ‘Where is the juice coming from? What was it? What is it? What's being put in it?’”
They insist that if DA wines are to be considered an extension of the traditional wine industry, these conversations can’t be lost. For Prima Pave, they focus on aromatic northern Italian varietals. “It has to be terroir driven, just like a traditional alcoholic wine. I want to change the conversation from it tastes just like wine to shift to you know what? It's a fine product. It's a wonderful product that you can enjoy, and you can enjoy tomorrow night a good Barolo. They are not mutually exclusive.”
