Non-Alcoholic Wine Isn’t Always Alcohol-Free—Here’s How to Know What You’re Getting

These days, just because you want to enjoy a glass of bubbly or open a bottle of red, white, or rosé, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily pouring a traditional wine. The market for non-alcoholic wine is growing by leaps and bounds. “In the United States, non-alcoholic wine sales reached $89.9 million in 2024, marking a 27% increase from the previous year,” says Emily Heintz, founder and CEO of Sèchey.

But, just because these wines are more widely available, it doesn’t mean that they’re well-understood. In fact, some of the non-alcoholic wine on the market isn’t actually alcohol-free. The amount of alcohol is tiny, but for people who want to avoid it completely, it’s helpful to know what to look for on the label. To clarify matters, I asked a couple of experts to shed some light on these newly popular beverages.

What Is Non-Alcoholic Wine?

Non-alcoholic wine is often used as an umbrella term, says Heintz. “But technically, it refers to beverages with less than 0.5% ABV. In the US, this is the legal threshold set by the FDA to be considered ‘non-alcoholic.’”

Generally speaking, there are two ways to make non-alcoholic wine. The first is to craft a beverage from water, juices, tea, and/or other flavorings to make a drink that looks, smells, and tastes as much like wine as possible. These drinks are typically zero-alcohol.

The second method is to start with real wine that has been made just like traditional vino—the grapes are harvested, crushed, and fermented, says Grant Hemingway, CEO and co-founder of Libby Non-Alcoholic Wines. “Then the alcohol is gently removed using techniques like spinning cone columns or molecular extraction, which preserve aroma and flavor while reducing ethanol below 0.5% ABV.” This wine is often called “dealcoholized” or “alcohol-removed.”

For Alcohol-Free, Look for Zero-Alcohol

A lot of common beverages—not just non-alcoholic wines—clock in around 0.5% ABV and are still considered non-alcoholic. Think kombucha, for example. But, if you truly want wine without a trace of alcohol, look for one that says “0.0% ABV” on the front or back label, says Heintz. “The ABV percentage is the clearest indicator of whether a wine is truly alcohol-free.” And remember, these drinks won’t have started as actual wine.

What to Expect Flavor-Wise

If you’re choosing between a true zero-alcohol “wine” and a dealcoholized one, there are a few things to consider. If absolutely no alcohol is important to you, choose one of the wine-inspired bottles available. But, says Heintz, consumers should know that “many 0.0% ‘wine-inspired’ options on the market lean more toward sweet, flavored beverages.” 

Hemingway agrees that dealcoholized wines give a drinker the closest thing to a real wine experience. “They begin as real wine, so you retain the structure, acidity, and nuance that’s hard to fake. You can’t easily recreate that complexity in a lab.”