Alcohol-free sparkling wine: prices, ratings and where to buy
Last reviewed
Sparkling is the category where alcohol-free works best. The reason is simple. In sparkling wine the bubbles, the acidity and the sweetness carry the experience. Alcohol does less of the work than it does in still wine, so its absence shows less.
A good alcohol-free sparkling tastes dry, has acidity that holds the flavour together, and leaves no sugary finish. A bad one tastes like carbonated grape juice.
The difference usually comes down to how it was made. Dealcoholised wine starts as real wine and has the alcohol removed afterwards. That keeps the structure and minerality of real wine, and where the base wine aged on its lees, the bready character too. Grape juice with added carbonation never fermented and tastes like it. The label rarely tells you which one you are holding. Look for the words "dealcoholised" or "alcohol removed".
Sugar is the second thing to check. When alcohol goes, the wine loses body, and many producers compensate with sugar. A bottle with 30 grams per litre tastes sweet no matter how it is marketed. The best sit under 20.
The list below covers every alcohol-free sparkling wine we have found. Bottles we have tasted come first, ranked by score on taste, aroma, body and drinkability. The rest are listed as untasted, because a list that leaves them out would not be complete as we taste new wines continuously.
Serving: colder than sparkling wine with alcohol, 6 to 8°C or 43 to 46°F. Without alcohol, sweetness comes forward at higher temperatures.
If you want the top rated ones instead of the full list, read our pick of the best alcohol-free sparkling wines.