Karin Leeuwenhoek is a theologian, vinologist and communications scholar. She has ninety Italian olive trees, but mostly loves wine - and philosophising about it. See also her wine blog vinoblogie.co.uk. She writes a column in every issue of WINELIFE Magazine. - TEXT KARIN LEEUWENHOEK | IMAGE PEXELS.COM
Zero comma nothing
Non-alcoholic wine. I don't like it. 0.0 beer and mocktails, they can be quite good. Delicious even, because of all the aromatic, uplifting spices, (hop) flowers, citrus peel, expressive fruit, sweet, sour and not forgetting the bubbles. Especially mocktails can be super-high in flavour and very exciting and satisfying.
But de-alcoholised wine, wine from which the alcohol has been ingeniously extracted; don't get me started... or you will get slapped in the face yourself. I am lumping all brands together for the sake of convenience. Because I haven't come across any really good ones yet. Still, I am curious: should it ever be technically possible to produce tasty alcohol-free wine? Or is it just too difficult, just as there are excellent vegan stews and chicken fillets on the market, but somehow no tasty sausages or cheese? With wine, the main problem, it seems, is in the 'alcohol hole' that needs to be closed.
Niek Beute wrote a great piece about it in WINELIFE last year. He noted that the fullness and warm feeling of wine are largely due to alcohol; take it away, and it becomes taut and skimpy.
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