On my journey to find which “Wines” to try, I searched for recommendations. With food and drink, we all have our preferred tastes, so instead of listening to just one writer, my method of ranking the top non-alcoholic wines was to see which wines were featured the most. After all, if enough people recommend the same thing, there must be something in it, right?
Are Non-Alcoholic Wines Just Juice?
So before we start diving into the top un-wines, let’s talk about what they are.
Non-alcoholic drinks are generally a blend of fruits and sugar – the argument can definitely be made that it’s juice. However, it’s more a lifestyle drink than it is the content. Beyond just pressing fruit for liquid, these non-alcoholic drinks, or “UnWines”, started out originally as wine, but through a dealcoholization process becomes an UnWine.
The challenge with UnWines is that once you remove the alcohol from a drink, you remove the depth of a drink or the viscosity. Imagine taking the fat off a delicious steak, is it still a steak? Yes, but the lean muscle just doesn’t taste the same as a steak with a great blend of fat and lean meat. Same with wine – the alcohol holds a lot of the texture and flavor of the wine. Once the alcohol is removed, the taste is very different. It’s up to the maker of an UnWine to use flavors, to return the complexity of a wine.
Most Featured Non-Alcoholic Wines
Ariel Cabernet Sauvignon (Non-Alcoholic Red Wine)
- Method: Reverse Osmosis, Less than 0.5% ABV
- Nutrition: 52 calories / 8 oz. serving
- Price: $9.00 per bottle on their website (No free shipping)
- Produced in: California
According to their website, the Ariel brand for non-alcoholic wine began to gain popularity around 1986. With over 36 years of experience crafting non-alcoholic wine, I have high hopes for this to be a delicious un-wine.
On their website, they state, “ARIEL dealcoholized wines, also rich in polyphenols, became an ideal alternative for those who wanted to incorporate red wine into their diets for its health benefits, but did not desire to drink alcohol every day.”
The ARIEL oak-aged Cabernet Sauvignon offers aromas of black currants, cherry, blueberries and chocolate, with soft tannins and a dry finish. They recommend that you try it with manchego, carne asada, Texas chili, and wood-fired pizza.