Analcoolic wine

Vacuum destillation and reverse osmosis are both procedures to take out water from the must (in both cases) or from the finished wine (reverse osmosis), a procudure called "concentration".

I have my doubts whether these procedures would work for taking out the alcohol. I know there is a process to pass wine though "spinning cone columns" (SCC) to take out the alcohol, but I don't know whether this is done commercially to produce alcohol-free wine. SCC is regularly used in California to lower the alcohol degree, be it for tax purposes in jug wines (federal tax increases by 60¢/gallon from 14.2% upwords), be it to produce better balanced wines.

There was an article in the Wine Spectator dated Dec 15, 1997, "Spin Doctors", about the use of SCC. Unluckily, WS archives are paying now.

M.

Mi e' parso che Michael Pronay abbia scritto:

Very interesting, thanks.

Beyond tax purposes, the spinning cone technique is used to restore balance to wines that otherwise would have excessive alcohol. It is used in California but it is my understanding that it is actually more prevalent in Australia.

Back on the original topic, I think it's a mistake to even think in terms of non-alcoholic wine - without alcohol, the beverage may be something but it's not wine and it doesn't taste like it.

Well, howdy, Mark! Long time, no see. In Jan. we attended a ZAP tasting and I happened to visit the Amador Foothills table, staffed by the owners. When I mentioned your name, they told me (with regret) that you'd gone and relocated to Seattle. I hope all is going well for you and that you can spend some time in here now and again.

Mark Lipton

Reverse osmosis definitely doesn't work for taking out the alcohol. Vaccum destillation has been tried, but not very successfully, afaik.

M.

I was under the impression that they could use reverse osmosis to seperate the water, alcohol and some trace components, then use some form of distallation to remove alcohol from the permeate and combine the remainder back into the retentate of the RO.

I don't think they can use this remove all of the alcohol because only a portion of the original alcohol will cross through the membrane during RO, but I think they can use it to lower the alcohol.

Andy

Maybe that's possible in theory - I'm not a chemist -, but it's definitely not done in practice.

M.

Hi Mark - Yes, Ben and Katie have had to learn how to do without me ;^) I've been around lurking occasionally, just haven't posted lately.

- Mark W.