Methods
How non-alcoholic, dealcoholised and 0.0% wines are made in Spain and the EU: the methods compared, not the brand names on the kit.
How non-alcoholic, dealcoholised and 0.0% wines are made in Spain and the EU: the methods compared, not the brand names on the kit.
Once the wine has fermented, EU law allows alcohol to leave by three authorised processes: partial vacuum evaporation (vacuum distillation in the cellar), membrane techniques and distillation (Regulation (EU) 2021/2117). In the cellar that means two families. The thermal route gently boils the wine under vacuum: ethanol leaves and takes aroma with it, so the plant has to put that essence back. The membrane route does not boil the wine: either it pushes liquid against a filter (reverse osmosis, nanofiltration) or it lets ethanol cross a hydrophobic membrane as vapour (osmotic distillation). Those are not the same thing. GoLo, ClearAlc, Solos and the spinning cone are platforms inside those families, not separate methods. A dealcoholised wine is 0.5% ABV or less; a partially dealcoholised wine sits above 0.5% and below the category minimum. PDO and PGI wines may only be dealcoholised in part. Regulation (EU) 2026/471, in force since 18 March 2026, adds harmonised commercial terms; the new labelling requirements apply from 19 September 2027.
A method is the physical process. A platform is branded kit that runs that process. An aroma module does not take the alcohol out.
Pressure is dropped and the wine is heated just enough for ethanol to leave as vapour. Aroma leaves with it, so it has to be caught and put back. The kit names below are platforms for this method, not methods of their own.
Platforms of this method
The wine is not boiled. Ethanol crosses a membrane: either as liquid under high pressure (reverse osmosis) or as vapour at ambient temperature (osmotic distillation). Those are not the same thing. ALTR is a platform still in development, not one of those two.
Methods in this family
Platforms in this family
| Type | Name | Part of | Final ABV | Volume loss | Wines known to use it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vacuum distillation · Method | |||||
| Platform | Spinning cone | Vacuum distillation | Catalogue ≤0.5%; plant runs often ~0.05% | Attributed range ~20–25% on two passes | Torres Natureo and WIN (Spain), Fre and Luminara (California), Giesen (New Zealand) |
| Platform | GoLo | Vacuum distillation | As low as <0.05% | 13–20% on 0.0% wine (BevZero service figure) | No brand credits it on the label; Codorníu Zero in US trade press |
| Platform | ClearAlc | Vacuum distillation | As low as 0.05% | Maker says losses are reduced; no published % | No finished-wine brand credits it yet; Cariñena plant (2026) |
| Platform | Equalizer | Vacuum distillation | As low as ≤0.5% | No figure published by the maker | No wine brand confirmed; mostly 0.0 beer so far |
| Aroma module | Solos | Vacuum distillation | Centec <0.01%; Solos claims <0.005% | About 15% (Solos figure for the whole train) | Zeronimo (Austria), Oceano Zero (California); plant in Valencia |
| Membrane techniques · Family | |||||
| Method | Reverse osmosis | Membrane techniques | As low as <0.5% with repeated diafiltration | Low if volume is put back; water leaves with the ethanol | Ariel (California); WIN (Spain), for partial removal |
| Method | Osmotic distillation | Membrane techniques | Mostly partial cuts; 0.0% needs many cycles | That of the ethanol removed; the wine’s water does not leave with it | No 0.0% brand credits it on the label; industrial use (Memstar) |
| Platform | ALTR Velvet Blade | Membrane techniques | Not published; public trials point to 7–10%, not 0.0 | Not published (pre-commercial) | Piloting at Materra Cunat Family Vineyards, Napa; trial with Clos du Val |
Plenty of well-known 0.0% wines only say “vacuum distillation” without naming the kit: Kolonne Null (Germany, around 30 °C with aroma recovery), Leitz Eins Zwei Zero (Germany, boiling point down to 26 °C), Oddbird (Sweden, a patented low-temperature process), French Bloom (France, three distillations at 32 °C) and Freixenet 0.0% (Spain, vacuum evaporation plus natural wine aromas). They sit here rather than in the table because the platform is not public. Pervaporation turns up in scientific reviews; it is not a cellar standard for 0.0% wine, so it has no page of its own until a named commercial use is confirmed.
Pressure is dropped and the wine is heated just enough for ethanol to leave as vapour. Aroma leaves with it, so it has to be caught and put back. The kit names below are platforms for this method, not methods of their own.
The wine is not boiled. Ethanol crosses a membrane: either as liquid under high pressure (reverse osmosis) or as vapour at ambient temperature (osmotic distillation). Those are not the same thing. ALTR is a platform still in development, not one of those two.
