If you'd like to Support the Podcast, you can buy me a glass of wine and get a shoutout on a future episode!

I read an article today called "Nonalcoholic wine is still terrible. Will it ever get better?" It's by Ester Mobley in the 1/24/26 San Francisco Chronicle and it inspired me to add to and re-release our episode from last January, where 4 of us got together to taste a lineup of De-Alcholoized Wines. It was a great episode, entertaining and enlightening... so here's your chance in case you missed it!

The rise of NOLO wines (non-alcoholic or low-alcohol alternatives) is a hot and polarizing topic in the beverage industry. Listen in as Michael and I and our good friends and fellow wine industry professionals, Hoby and Justin, taste through sparkling, white, rosé and red non-alcoholic wines and share our unfiltered responses with each other!

1. Learn about the different methods used to create non-alcoholic wines, preserving flavor during alcohol removal
2. How are de-alcoholized wines different from the sparkling grape juice we were all served as kids during the holidays?
3. Can Nolo wines fully replace traditional wines, or are they just enjoyable alternatives?

Want to hear more of Dr. Hoby Wedler? Listen to this episode where he talks about Seeing Flavor and Tasting Color and our episode talking about the "Come Over October Campaign". Follow him on INSTAGRAM and check out his WEBSITE.

We tasted:

Zilch sparkling rosé

Fre Rose and Sauvignon Blanc

Giesen New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Red Blend

Hand On Heart Cabernet Sauvignon

Ariel Cabernet Sauvignon

Other resources and links:

Podcast website: www.sipwithnikki.com: Sign up there to be part of our SIP Community and receive my free Wine Tips download

Did you know I make my own wine here in Sonoma County? My 2022 Sollevato Sangiovese and 2023 Grenache are available to be shipped to most US States. Use the code PODLISTENER for 10% off. They're both delicious, medium bodied, aromatic red wines that belong on your dinner table!

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Use my VIP Friends and Family Link to sign up for Wine Spies! And use the coupon code NIKKI for $50 off your order of $200 or more!

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It is the only deal wine to win a gold medal against wines with alcohol. Okay, that's some beer.

Now here we go.

Are you trying, Are you doing dry January or maybe damp January? I am not, no surprise here, not participating in dry January.

However, I just read an article today in the San Francisco Chronicle by a very well known local author here, Esther Mobley. And the article came to me in an email this morning and the subject line caught my attention immediately.

It says, non alcoholic wine is still terrible. Will it ever get better?

And then the article proceeds to reinforce what Michael and I and our friends Hobie and Justin discovered when we did a tasting a year ago of non alcoholic wines for the podcast. And then some additional information that I thought was really interesting.

So it sparked me to change gears from the podcast that I was going to release this week. Well, don't worry, we'll do that soon.

But I decided to re release our tasting of non alcoholic wines from a year ago because I think there's a lot of you that didn't hear it.

And it's still very timely and very relevant because as Esther says in her article, it sounds like there's still a lot of challenge when it comes to the flavor of these wines.

And she says much de alcoholized wine tastes rubbery, thin, artificial, and as I discovered in an exhaustive tasting last year, often bizarrely like oregano.

And the gist of her article is that it's surprising that non alcoholic wine hasn't gotten any better because there are so many people, Americans specifically, who are cutting back on drinking or not drinking at all.

So she interviews a professor from UC Davis, much like you're going to hear me talking with Hobie, who has a PhD in organic chemistry, also from UC Davis.

And he shares that the main reason that non alcoholic wine is so much more hard to produce well than like non alcoholic beers, cause there's a lot of great NA beers out there, is that wine just has a much higher alcohol content than beer. Right? Alcohol by volume in most wines is usually on average 14%, where beer is anywhere from 4 to 7.

And so when you remove the alcohol in wine, because the original alcohol content was so high, it changes the product much more dramatically than doing the same thing when you remove the alcohol from a 4% alcohol by volume beer. And that made total sense when I read that in her article.

So I left the original intro to last year's episode, which you're about to hear, even after adding this new intro, because it helps to set up what you're about to hear. When you have listened, I'd love for you to send me a note. Nikkiipwithnikki.com have you tried any? Do you like them? Are you doing Dry January?

Are you doing Damp January? And just pulling back a little bit, have all the questions, which is why I think I'm about to create a Facebook group for all of us to stay in touch.

But stay tuned on that. So here we go with last year's episode. So it's January and all around me, even in wine country, I'm hearing people talk about dry January.

And it typically is a time of year where people look at their relationship with alcohol and maybe decide to make some changes, whether it's pausing or just more moderation, drinking less, drinking differently. So as someone whose life very much revolves around wine, this is always an interesting topic to me.

Now I will start by saying my partner Michael and I, we do not participate in Dry January, but we certainly from time to time like to pull back a little and drink less. And I recently was introduced to a new acronym in the beverage industry of nolo no no alcohol or Low Alcohol Wines.

And I have noticed that this is definitely a growing category. I'm seeing more and more of these products on shelves and on restaurant menus. So I thought it was time to open some up and taste them.

So we were having our two very good friends, Hobie and Justin over for dinner and we decided to do some tasting of de alcoholized or non alcoholic wines with them. Now a little Backstory on Hobie. Dr. Hobie Wedler.

If you've been listening for a while, you've heard Hobie make appearances in multiple Sip with Nikki episodes. His first episode, seeing Flavor with Dr. Hobie Wedler, we dove deeply into how Hobie perceives wine.

He was born without sight and has a PhD in organic chemistry. And Hoby's life's work is helping whether individual consumers or businesses look at sensory differently.

And he consults and helps whether it's wine or spirits or food companies, to really look at formulations and tastes and smells of their products and help to elevate them. His wonderful partner Justin is also part of that business. And I love Justin's cool, calm demeanor.

He will take everything in and then just drop a wisdom bomb which you will hear in this recording. So they came over for dinner, but before we jumped into the delicious mole and homemade tortillas, tomatillo and guacamole.

I had amassed about six or seven different non alcoholic wines just from local stores. And we have a really interesting conversation about it. As four avid wine drinkers and people who love wine.

First, Hobie, with his background in chemistry, helps us to understand how these, quote, wines are made and how can you make a non alcoholic wine? Isn't that just grape juice? So listen for that and then you'll hear our very honest and unfiltered reactions.

Now, I have to say we're probably not going after any sponsorships from any of these products. Although I'm just gonna tease a little bit and say our general reactions across the board. We were pleasantly surprised.

But we talk about, can you really compare these non alcoholic wines to wine, or do you sort of think of it as its own category? So you'll hear more about that. So here we go with our interesting and surprising tasting of non alcoholic wines.

Thanks for coming over to my house for a feast.

Thanks for inviting us. My gosh, Nikki. I love sip with Nikki. I've been listening to everything you've been doing, and it's so cool.

And you're the classic example of what I call you. Just stick with it and do it all and make it all the way.

Amen.

And you do so well at that.

Thank you so much, friend. Slowly but surely, we are finding our people and more people are finding us.

I love that. Congratulations.

Thank you. So, hot topic today. I learned a new term for this. Michael. By the way, the noise that everyone hears in the background. Michael.

We are in our kitchen and Michael is cooking. He's actually grilling fresh tortillas as we speak. How'd that one come out, Michael?

I don't know. I haven't tasted any of them yet.

Gonna do a little ASMR tortilla eating for us. Here you go. I learned a new term today. Nolo. N O L O. Non alcohol, low alcohol wines. So today we're talking about Nolo.

Nolo wines.

A very hot topic.

Oh, yeah. No alcohol.

I'm not much of a Nolo guy.

But we're not Nolo ers, are we?

So I thought this would be perfect for us, especially because you and I both have been so passionate this fall with the whole come over October campaign. Right? And which is an answer to sober October and dry January. And here we are in January. A lot of people are trying to be dry.

I'm damp.

I can't help myself. That sounds like a personal.

I'm Moist. I'm a little wet.

I'm moist.

I'm always a little wet. What can I say? Moist.

January just does not have the same ring. Michael and I, I will not speak for you and Justin. Michael and I are not participating in dry January.

Love it.

Wine is too important and too big of a part of our lives. We're trying to like maybe like moderate and just drink a little bit less.

And it's called football playoffs. And while he's NFL playoffs. Just.

It's a big.

January is a big month, Nikki. As I say, everything in moderation. Including moderation.

I think it was like three total months, but four over the span of four. And it's like when you're in Italy, you can't be damp. You gotta be like fully soaked.

Yeah, I'm sorry. In Barolo and I'm sorry you're soaked. Nepiolo.

When I'm up in South Turo where our company is, you gotta be soaked. It's hard to be damp or dry.

But it's hard not to take notice as people that are in this business for our livelihood. Right. It's hard not to take notice of the rise of the non alcoholic products that are on market.

And I've been doing some reading about this, just looking especially as someone who makes wine and sells wine for a living, the trends of how people are buying, how people are drinking, things are definitely changing. So I thought it'd be fun for us to dive in. And I before this, I don't think I had ever taste non alcoholic wine.

I had like sparkling grape juice as a kid at the holidays.

Martinelli's.

Martinelli's down the road from here. But I don't think I had ever tasted de alcoholized wine.

Interesting.

And from what I understand and I'd love for you to weigh in. Oh, PhD in chemistry. There's ways to go about creating these non alcoholic or de alcoholized products.

I believe every single one that I've procured for us today to taste are de alcoholized or alcohol removed is what you'll see on the label.

Right.

So they're made like wine and there's fermentation and there's yeast and the yeast create ethanol and then there are processes to remove it.

Where does the alcohol go?

Where does it go?

Yeah, it's a good question. Where does the alcohol go? Because Michael wants it.

No doubt.

Right. No matter what. Yeah.

Just save it on the side for me.

Yeah, There you go. One of the things that we know with alcohol as opposed to water is that alcohol boils at a lower temperature. So it is what we call more volatile.

Right.

Sorry.

Not to be nerdy nerd, you all. Yeah, I am. I know. And all the. All the listeners know, too.

Basically, when something boils is when the vapor pressure reaches the point of the atmospheric pressure. And if something like alcohol is more volatile than water or has a higher vapor pressure than water, excuse me, it's going to boil quicker.

So if you put wine under a vacuum, you will get rid of the alcohol and you will preserve the water components of the grape. One of the biggest problems with this one is that you'll pull a lot of the aroma, the beautiful sort of bouquet and flavor and aroma away from it.

Another one is regular distillation where you just heat it up and that is alcohol evaporates. Yep. It's going to blow off a lot there. You're going to basically distill the alcohol away from the wine.

The point is that we don't want to make wine non alcoholic before we do the fermentation because we want to be able to taste and smell and experience the aromas, flavors, and textures of.

Wine as a result of fermentation and all the complexity. Fermentation doesn't just create alcohol.

It creates interesting changed aromas and things become present in flavors and textures that weren't there before.

The other super costly ways to do it, one a little bit less costly, is reverse osmosis. That's how we basically our cells bring things through the membrane via osmosis. Reverse osmosis.

We use energy to shove things through the membrane a different way, basically, but it costs a lot of money. Yeah, that's how I grew up sailing on the San Francisco Bay. And that's how we desalinate water as well as reverse osmosis.

The other way that we can do this, and it's super costly, and I wouldn't recommend it, is with a distillation technique called spinning cone column.

Basically, we spin a cone around, which reduces vapor pressure of the substance that is in the vessel where the column is, and then essentially makes it easier to evaporate off.

So being the chemistry nerd that you are, which one do you think is probably the most preferred to keep as much wine flavor?

Definitely prefer to be the spinning cone column technique or reverse osmosis. But they're also the super most expensive ones, of course. So I imagine that what we're going to taste today.

It really wouldn't make sense to use the distillation unless you were really desperate. Right. Because that's going to just cook what you have in your wine.

Yeah, I poured the first one in your glass and you heard me pop the cork, so no surprise, this one's sparkling. The name of this is Zilch. I love the name Zilch. No alcohol. All good. California rose bubbles. Non alcoholic carbonated grape beverage.

So this does not smell fermented. Nikki.

I believe this is a non alcoholic, carbonated great beverage. This is not de alked, as we say.

And it actually smells really good.

It does. It smells yummy.

It smells like something I would love to pour on my berry pie. Oh, Uncle Justin's here with us.

Uncle Justin?

Giuseppe.

Uncle Justin didn't want a mic, but he's here. He's here.

He never wants a mic.

Smells very fruity.

He's like Uncle David and talks into a mic when he has to.

And by David you mean Matthews.

I do, but this is very funny.

Yummy. There's definitely some sweetness going on here. Here's what I think is so interesting with these.

We know, and this is another hot controversial topic, that currently wine does not require to have nutritional information label on it. Every single one of these does.

So how much sugar are we dealing with?

Yeah, so this one is probably the highest of the lineup today because this was not fermented. So this has all the sugar that was probably in the grapes. 24 grams of sugar.

Yep.

That's a lot.

That's a lot. But it tastes good.

Yeah.

And what I would do to this to make it even better, just as a tip to the wine maker, add some acid. I hit it with some citric acid. It's a little flabby.

Yeah, it's all fruit, no acid. I feel like it needs a little bit more mouthfeel.

All right, I'm ready to try what we have next.

So should we come up with a rating system so that one thumbs up, thumbs down. We don't have to do 100 point scale smiley face. Like, how should we rate these?

No, I think honestly, like a 10 point scale. I think three points for flavor, three points for aroma, and three points for texture as compared to normal wines.

We're comparing these back to wine?

No, we don't have to compare. No, never mind. Let's not compare. Okay. Let's do what makes us happy. So this one had no aroma. For me, it was very bland.

Didn't add a little bit of fruit. On the aroma, I'd give that a 1.

The flavor was probably a 3 because it was really flavorful, but, like, the texture and the sweetness, I don't know, maybe a two. So, like, I give that one a six.

Okay. I'm pretty close with you. I'm probably a five or a six out of ten. I thought it was fun.

I put this bottle on the kids table.

Yeah.

Enjoy some champagne.

Okay. Yeah. This guy was probably 20 bucks. None of these were over 25. Most of these were under 15 bucks.

You made these with these corn chips? They're amazing.

Yes, Your homemade tortilla chips. Next. The next two wines are by a producer called Free F R E. I love it. Like, alcohol free. It's alcohol removed wine. F R E free.

This is the rose from California Vineyards.

Okay.

I like their catchphrase. True happiness lies in the freedom to be yourself. This is six grams of sugar.

And does it say if they got all the alcohol out or.

No, this does say 15% juice.

Interesting.

And most of these. This one doesn't. But most of them say that. That they're, like, less than 0.5% alcohol, which is equal my understanding to, like, kombucha or.

I also read if you were to leave a carton of orange juice unrefrigerated on the counter overnight, the natural fermentation that will start in there is going to be around that, you know, half a percent alcohol.

Nikki, could I still drive without getting a DUI after drinking a whole bottle of this?

I think you would have to drink multiple bottles of this to hit 0.08 legal limit.

Because I like to drive, and I don't want to drive under the.

Oh, see, I didn't. You didn't even phase me with that question.

Above the limit.

Yeah.

You might drive better.

This one. It's okay. So, guys, on the aroma, this is really good because it still has that fermenty bit.

Because this was wine before it wasn't.

That's what I mean. So just so everybody's clear on that first one that we tasted, that was. And I actually commend the fact that it was just grape juice.

They didn't try to preserve wine flavor. So it smelled nothing or tasted anything like wine. It was basically sparkling fruit juice.

Yes.

This here really does smell like wine and that.

You have only smelled it so far.

I've only smelled it.

I love the.

And it actually really, Nikki, it really smells like wine.

Yeah, it's very aromatic. It's what you would expect from a kind of watermelon Jolly Rancher. Bubble gummy.

Yeah.

It's vibrant.

It makes me want to sit on a tailgate.

It makes you want to tailgate?

It does.

All right, let's taste it.

Okay. See, I'm so sorry, but I don't consider myself a heavy drinker, but I really do like the flavor of the alcohol when I taste the wine.

And this has none of that.

The smell is more layered and interesting for me in the mouth. It's very simple. And what I mean by that is like you're saying you like the flavor of alcohol.

One of the things we know from a chemical and a structural standpoint with wine is that the presence of ethanol in the mouth adds texture, it adds weight, it adds density and richness.

100%.

And that, for obvious reasons, is not here with this wine. So I like this wine when it's in my mouth and then when I swallow.

For me, just because we are people that are comparing this to traditional wine, something is missing.

But it has that sort of fake watermelony strawberry flavor.

I say it's very strawberry to me. Very flavor.

It does. Like I said, it says 15% juice. So I, I believe what happens once alcohol is removed?

Then they add back in some juice or some concentrate for just dimension, flavor, depth, weight, all of that.

And Nikki, what percent alcohol are we here contains?

Less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. Six grams of sugar per serving.

Got it. And how many servings in the bottle?

3. The question I did have for you about this is we're not gonna finish all of these bottles today. Let's say we wanna come back to them, enjoy them.

From an oxidation standpoint, if this was wine, I would corve in a gas. It vacuum it out. How similarly or differently do you think these oxidize and get weird after a couple days versus traditional wine?

If it's not made like wine, if it's just carbonated or whatever is done with it. Fruit juice, I would treat it just like your bottle of apple juice in the fridge.

Leave it for as long as you want, as long as you would normal fruit juice in your refrigerator. Wines that are made like wines are always going to behave like wine, right? They're going to oxidize quicker.

Maybe you'll see less oxidation, less funny flavor changes based on what we, what we have going here. But I would also.

You would vacuum it. I would protect it against oxygen to buy more time.

I would absolutely bring the oxygen level down and even use some pre reserve and use some argon gas there because it, it would make the wine better.

Okay, thank you. This is Free's other product. This is their alcohol removed Sauvignon Blanc.

I'm excited about this one. So if there's a wine grape that does best with the alcoholization, it is Sauvignon Blanc.

Why?

Because it's such a floral grape. It has so much going on at the front that when you remove and the alcohol is an added bonus. It just makes it go wee.

It smells great. I love the smell of this.

But when you knock the alcohol out of a Samblanc, it still should have a lot of aroma. Let me smell this. So sit here.

Yep.

Yeah. Now that smells really good. That smells like Tropic.

It does smell tropical. I will give you that full tropic thunder.

Little green.

Which one?

Green. Meaning?

Meaning like green nasturtium green flowers. Maybe a little bit stemmy, but not in a bad way. Okay.

Is that just the nose or did you take just the nose?

Haven't tasted. Ready to taste. See if I'm gonna do a non alkaline or a de alcoholized wine, Sauvignon Blanc is where I am always because it's so refreshing.

It's sour, it's tart, it pulls away from your mouth a little bit. How would you describe this? Mickey and Michael?

There's a lot of sweetness. For me, I think it's. I like.

It doesn't have, like you said, it doesn't have that extra almost artificially flavored berry flavor like the watermelon strawberry of the rose. This one does have more melon, which Samuel Blanc. I mean, I. I just missed.

It's not crisp and it's not clean, and I feel like that's all these havers.

It's interesting to me, like you talked about the lack of a acidity. Like you can add that in without affecting alcohol. Why not drop in a little bit more tartaric acid? People use that in other food products.

That to me is.

It would.

If it had that exclamation point on the end, it would mirror its counterpart of true wine. Okay, let's rate the two free products. The. And then the Sauvignon 1 to 10. Go.

So for me, the was a little more acidic and cool.

Yeah, I know.

More mouthfeel. I'd give that probably a seven. And this one's got a seven because of the nose, but not because of the mouthfeel.

Oh, I agree with that. It's 2, 7, 7 on the nose, but it drops to 6 in the mouth for me.

But I actually enjoy this.

I want to Make a cocktail out of this like a mocktail.

I would too.

And I could fizz it up, ice it up.

Can you make sangria with free?

Sure.

You have part of the structure of it. You just add all the alcohol.

Yeah, but Nikki, I could drink a full glass of that. I could.

I'm not offended by it. Right. But here's the thing.

The criteria that we're using tasting right now is not just, well, and maybe it should be, hey, do you like what's in this glass? And would you drink it? We are trying to say, is this a valid substitute for wine?

And maybe we need to change how we are thinking about these and manage the expectations to just, hey, if for whatever choice you're making, that you are not consuming alcohol, whether it's a month, a year, or for your life. If you like the ritual. Like, I love when I'm cooking, if. When I try not to drink wine when I'm cooking is when I miss it the most.

Right. Me too.

Could I put something like this in a glass and enjoy a little bit of it while I'm cooking? Yeah. Would probably fulfill the ritual need, but I feel like I'd be getting a lot of sugar.

Exactly. And Nikki, what's stupid that I do? I will take soda water when I'm really not drinking, which is pretty rare.

I will take soda water and put it in a wine glass and I'll squeeze some lime in it.

Yeah. And so do you want me to tell you what this is? I've been telling you so far.

She smell. Let's just smell and talk. Okay, so we have a new folks. We have a new wine in our glass.

Yes.

I snuck in with a new wine.

This is Giessen. Giessen. 0% de alkalized. Alkalized New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

This one actually says 66% grape juice, 80% de alkalized Sauvignon Blanc, and 14% white wine.

So that's funny to me. 14% white wine. I don't know what that means.

And then what's the alcohol by volume on that?

This, it's the same.

Less than 0.5%, less than 5% because it's de alcoholized. But this, the last Sauvignon Blanc from Free was California, and now we are in New Zealand.

And I hate to say it, when I smell this wine, I get nothing on the nose. I get a little bit of floral.

It's a little stinky, almost sulfury to me.

Do all say sulfur in it or is it just that one it's like this one.

Does this one say it's sulfur? Yeah, I smell it.

It says it's white sulfur. This one says sulfur dioxide. Preservative it. Preservative.

Yeah. You can smell it. And what's really funny is it knocks all the fruit out. For me, it's not rotten eggs, but.

It'S a little farty.

Like flinty.

You say flinty, I say farty.

Yeah, sure. And get the farty.

It's a New Zealand stink bug.

Yeah, stink bug.

But then it also has a little bit of that fruit to it.

But I could smell the fruit.

I don't love the nose on this one. But for me, this has a fresher, more wine, like finish with acid.

Oh, 100%. And it has that puckering quality.

Yeah. Which I like.

Come back.

I like that. Yeah.

This one might be better. A little bit better once it's opened.

Up a little bit more. Yeah. Giessen. G I E S E N I'm going to put the link of all of these in the show notes. I found all of these wines between.

I think I already mentioned the Safeway, which is our grocery store here, because we can buy alcohol in the grocery store stores here. Although these are not alcohol. But they were in the wine section. Trader Joe's and Bottle Barn, which is our local wonderful wine shop.

Nice.

Okay, this one, New England, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is very different aromatically anyway, than in California Sauvignon Blanc.

Yes.

And I think these definitely show true to where the. The last one was more tropical, the California Sauvignon Blanc. Whereas this is more grassy and earthy and stinky.

But it doesn't have that extra rim bomb that just nails you in the face.

No, that one is. I'm intrigued by this one. I would.

I do. I would drink another glass of this.

I would spend a little more time with that one. Okay, now we're moving into red. We have three.

This is back. We're back to New Zealand.

This is that same producer, Giessen. G I e s e n 0% premium red.

Oh, God. Does it give a variety?

This one just says premium red wine. No, it says 6% of again, grape juice and 94% de alkalized.

The color's really pretty.

In the glass where Hoagie Wedler shines is being able to smell something and describe it, right?

Yes.

The way I would describe this, just from the nose is wet paper, construction paper from elementary school.

Oh, that is a specific memory note.

Tell me that big paper, that big Paper?

Yes.

Tell me, what color is the construction?

I don't know. I don't know.

It's like orange.

And then there's a score, funny little apple cinnamon twist note going on, but it's not one. Wow. Whoa. It's not offensive.

There is ending one, ending two, and ending three. Like, I noticed three very separate pieces on the back end of that six.

Wow.

This one does have a little bit of acidity.

I mean, we're all doing that. Yeah.

That's interesting. That actually is not as bad as I was expecting it to be.

I thought we were going into this with no judgment, Purely educational. And then we make statements like, that's not as bad as I thought I was gonna be. Hang on.

Dr. Hoby, take two.

No, I'm keeping that in. You're keeping that in?

That's actually okay. It's not what I would expect from a red wine.

He was using his smell. You were smelling at first. You were like, this is going to be this kind of taste. I'm giving you that credit. I'm feeling like that's.

Michael, you're being really optimistic and nice tonight.

Yeah, yeah, I'm trying. It's my New Year's resolution, I would say.

So far, what are we, six in.

And I don't even feel a buzz.

None of them have offended me. Like, they're all a consumable beverage that have some fun potential for sangria or cocktails or mocktails or whatever.

That's true.

We just have to let go of the does it taste like wine? Which is hard for us to do.

And, Nikki, that's a really good point. If I'm letting that go completely with this wine, this is a solid eight for me.

I think that's why I wanted us to taste quite a few, because, again, I've not tasted a lot of these in my lifetime time. And just. You got to have a good sample set, right? So here's another red. This is called Hand on Heart. California alcohol removed. Hand On Heart.

This is by far the darkest colored one.

By far, Cabernet Sauvignon.

But the first smell of it is like.

Oh, it's. Oh, no. Grapey cherry compote jam.

Like, right now, this one is making my mouth water. My mouth is watering right now.

Oh, I love this. I like the smell of this. Hand on Heart Cabernet Sauvignon.

I'm going to put my hand on my heart, and I'm going to taste it.

You look very patriotic. This one is intriguing on the nose.

It is. And it doesn't smell like typical red wine.

Says it's aged in oak, and it is 12 grams of sugar per serving. Okay. I'm reserving my reaction.

So what I would say about this on the nose is a ton of berry. It's. Whoa.

I love the nose of this.

Call it fruitiful. Fruitiful, but not cabernet fruitiful. Something else. It's just berry. It's good.

Like red fruit characteristic, not cabernet in a little blueberry. Yeah. And, Michael, it's very.

Tilt your glass a little bit so you get the little bit of veneer on the edge, which is what I always do. And then smell the. To me, it's total blueberry.

Like, I love the smell of this.

Yeah. It reminds me of pop Tarts.

Oh, yeah. Like a frosted pop Tart, which I.

Love, by the way.

Don't shame me judging you hard over.

It does not boast the palate that the aroma exudes.

Oh, I love the smell of this.

I do, too. I do not.

It does not taste like it smells. No, it's pretty acidic. We were asking for more acid, and it's. Here you go.

And to me, it's just with the cherry, because the nose was so layered and interesting, it then feels just very thin and one dimensional on my palette.

It does.

I could make a mocktail. I could break my own rule and put it over ice, which I wouldn't do ever with regular wine, But I.

Can'T even do that with this.

Okay.

I respect wine too much to put it over ice, but I hear you. I hear you, friend.

Okay.

Ariel. Premium de alcoholized wine. Ariel A R, I, E, L. Where's she from? California.

Okay.

It is the only deal wine to win a gold medal against wines with alcohol. Okay. That's some big.

Now here we go.

Expectations got some cojones going. Now, I will also tell you that this is the first and only one tonight to actually have a real cork. They're all screw cap.

Interesting.

I'm assuming it's probably a composite or a synthetic cork, but I can hear.

You actually digging your.

It's a composite cork. It says, please refrigerate and consume within five days after opening.

Okay.

That's Interesting.

Or you might explode.

Got probably the darkest color. I have high expectation here because it's. Because the label says it won a gold medal against traditional.

Okay, so the cork just smells a lot like fruit. That's it. And it feels like a real cork. I think you're right, Nikki. I think it might be a composite thing, but it feels pretty real.

This says, and I think this is different than the others, that it retains all the natural, delicate flavors of wine by using a cold filtration process.

So this is going to be what we talked about, reverse osmosis.

This is where they're calling cold filtration reverse osmosis.

Yep. I'm 99% sure. If I'm wrong, I'll take the blame any day. But cold filtration is reverse osmosis, and it does preserve the aroma really well.

It does. I will say, and I wish I hadn't read the label, but I will say this smells the most winey.

It does.

Of the lineup.

And what do you think? This is a question I'm going to ask you, and then I'm going to answer myself in my own way. But what makes this most wine like on the nose?

Yeah, it has layers, and it's for me. And it was not just fruity layers.

And I smell the wood.

Bubble gum. Bubblegum's not fruit. But we're for this purpose. We'll loop it in. This, to me, has, like, fruitiness, earthiness, oakiness.

Yeah, it's got some layers.

I mean, it's got some mushroomy earthiness, some oakiness, like you said, from the barrel. And it does actually smell like wine. I'm gonna taste it.

10 grams of sugar.

That's really nice. They've even maintained a little bit of the tannin, which I think is really.

Nice because it's aged in oak, so. Yep.

Because a lot of the tannin actually in oak barrels comes out because of the alcohol. So maybe they aged it pre dealkylization and then did that and were smart enough to retain the tannin.

To me, this is definitely the most wine. Like, and I'm not saying that just because it says it was rated against actual wines. The nose, the layers, and the mouthfeel.

It probably was the most expensive one that I think. This one was just over 20. It's not bad. I might be able to sip on that while I'm cooking.

I think that the thing this wine brings to me more than all the others that we've tasted, actually is viscosity.

Yes.

But to me, this is not very watery. It is thicker. It is more like wine. It hangs on you. It plays with you a lot.

Okay, Justin, you have any impressions yet?

Justin's my partner and Mickey and Michael's dear friend.

I think for a regular wine drinker, someone who appreciates all the nuances of wine, especially living in Sonoma County, Napa county, traveling the world, drinking wine, it's unfair to compare these to those agree. Looking for something to drink without alcohol. It's an interesting option. And yeah, I like the idea of mixing it or something.

Either some seltzer, water or some other kind of mixer.

Yeah.

So the test tube that could talk, miraculously, was sitting on a Bunsen burner. And the chunk of ice in the test tube could also talk.

And the chunk of ice said to the Bunsen burner down below it, oh, my God, I think I'm falling in love with you. And the Bunsen burner said, what?

And the.

I said, yes, I'm just coming around for you. And the test tube said, ice. Don't worry, it's just a phase you're going through.

Chemistry Jokes by Hobie Wetland.

I should be the guide on the. I should be the guide on the jungle ride at Disneyland.

Yeah, totally campy. Kitschy. All right, final thoughts. Anyone? Final thoughts about this product category?

So let me share one thing. I really want to hear what Michael and you have to have to say. I just want to share one quick thing.

These have all been better than I was expecting when we talked about doing this show. Okay. They're really not bad. I think they're. I think they're good. And I think this part of the industry has a lot to look forward to.

It's definitely seeing a lot of growth.

I have been noticing more and more lately just when I look at a beverage list or a wine list in restaurants, you're actually seeing either non alcoholic wines, of course, non alcoholic beers and mocktail sections on menus. It's definitely a big, important category.

Totally.

I think that if you are someone who is used to drinking wines, true wines with sweetness in them, that these will appeal to you more. If you are someone like us, who tends to drink very dry wines where there is no sweetness but present, it's a little bit of an adjustment.

True.

I'm not offended by any of them. And definitely the last one for me, the Ariel was the most interesting to me. I feel like I could.

I would not have more than that because of the sugar, but this was pleasantly surprising.

And Nikki, have you tried these wines before? Before tasting us on MD9 no, Michael.

And I opened one of them one day this week when we were cooking. Just.

See? Nice.

Yeah. But no, we. We just opened most of these tonight.

Michael, what are your thoughts on these?

Since I like wine as far as the development and the layers of it, because that's the uniqueness to me, I feel the non alcoholics don't have all those layers that I enjoy about wine and what makes it special to drink while I'm eating. But I definitely feel that's because it's so sweet.

Yeah.

Which we don't drink a lot of sweet wines or I don't think I could drink it with food.

And Justin, we don't do sweet anything.

Yeah.

We don't dig it, like.

Yeah. And we don't even go. Great point, Michael, because we don't even go down the whole pairing thing.

Like, I think one thing that the four of us sitting here all have in common is we love the interaction of the right wine with the right food and how they elevate each other. And for me, we could find some pairings here. Right. But I think they are less versatile for pairing because of this sweetness.

I mean, and it doesn't, like you said, it doesn't have the tannin structure, it doesn't have the acidity you're looking for, which kind of like washes away. That's one of the biggest things about it sticks around. It just hangs around the sugar like the Jolly Rancher taste in your mouth.

And it just hangs around.

Yeah. It's just interesting to see how far this product category has grown. Different types, from sparkling to rose to white to red.

Different countries are doing it. Like, the robustness of it that we're already seeing is very interesting. And I think it's only going to continue.

And I think that what's going to happen too is that some of these are actually going to age up a little bit in the bottle. Not like regular wine. But I think it's going to be a really interesting transition.

Yeah. Thanks for being good sports everyone tonight and for sharing your thoughts. I feel, I think we should do a little cheers now.

We're going to eat some homemade mole and guacamole and homemade tortillas and rice and beans.

Never hesitate to just try stuff, guys.

Yeah. Orange construction paper. I mean, there you have it, right? Do you love Michael and his commentary? I love these three guys, all of them so much.

But I am appreciative that they were good sports and really weighed in very honestly, as you heard.

So I think in summary, what we all pretty much agreed on was that if you are really avid wine drinker who analyzes and pays attention to all of the components of wine, is de alcoholized wine going to really substitute that for you and just not have alcohol? No, it's a very different product.

Are they pleasant and fun and enjoyable beverages that could also be fun as a base of a mocktail or something like that? Yes, very drinkable.

Just you have to manage your expectations going into it and not expect it to replace all of the elements and dimension that we love about wine. I will put the link in the show notes for everything that I mentioned so you can try them for yourself.

And as always, if you would like to be an angel and support the podcast, buy me a glass of wine. Maybe I'll share it with Michael or Hobie or Justin. If they're lucky, there is a link to do so in the show notes and we would be ever so grateful.

Finally, we would love for you to leave us a rating for the podcast in whatever platform you're listening in and take an extra 30 seconds and leave a review. It's helpful so that we can get the word out about Sip with Nikki to more and more sippers and just continue to grow the party.

Can't wait to connect with you next week and whatever you do between now and then, I hope you sip well. Sa.