Which wines are naturally low in alcohol?

Dear Dr. Vinny,

I’m interested in low-alcohol wines, but I don’t like the idea of drinking manipulated wines. Are there any wines that are naturally lower in alcohol?

—Nicole, Denver

Dear Nicole,

Absolutely. There’s no official definition of low-alcohol wine, but most people would agree that any wine with alcohol by volume under 12 percent would qualify. The growing interest in “better for you” wines, which includes nonalcoholic and low-alcohol wines, looks like it’s here to stay. I suspect we’ll see more offerings of wines that pack less of an alcoholic punch.

How Are Low-Alcohol Wines Made?

There are different ways to make low-alc wines. One is to make wine as usual and then employ technologies that remove some of the alcohol. These include the spinning cone and reverse osmosis methods.

One problem with these techniques is that they often remove more than just alcohol, which can result in muted aromatics or stripped flavors. Alcohol is also responsible for a substantial part of wine’s pleasant mouthfeel, so when you remove it, you often end up negatively impacting more than just flavor.

But there are also low-alc wines that are made the normal way, without any technology used to remove alcohol after fermentation. These wines simply have less alcohol to begin with. Remember that during fermentation, yeast convert the sugar in grapes into alcohol. The riper the grapes, the more sugar the yeast can convert. If the grapes have less sugar to start with, the finished wine will be lower in alcohol.

In the vineyard, winemakers can employ different forms of canopy management in order to harvest grapes on the early side, which results in lower sugar levels. Certain yeasts can also help keep alcohol levels low during fermentation. Winemakers can also stop fermentation before all of the sugar is turned into alcohol, resulting in slightly sweet wines with lower alcohol.

Naturally Low-Alcohol Wines

There are some categories that are ripe (ha!) with low-alc wines. On the whole, white wine grapes tend to be picked earlier than red wine grapes, so I’d recommend starting your search with whites.

New Zealand is an especially good source of low-alc wines. There was even a “NZ Lighter Wines” initiative launched in 2014 by New Zealand Winegrowers, which spent around $10 million in research and development into producing wines that are naturally lower in alcohol. The project helped a region already known for making light, fresh wines take even better advantage of its strong UV rays, which ripen grapes earlier while maintaining acidity.

Rieslings from Germany are another good source of gorgeous, food-friendly wines that routinely clock in well below 12 percent alcohol. Many Proseccos are bottled at less than 12 percent alcohol, and in general, sparkling wines tend to be on the low end of the alcohol spectrum. On that note, don’t forget about lightly sparkling wines like Moscato, Brachetto and some Lambrusco. Spanish Txakoli and fizzy Vinho Verde from Portugal are also good bets.

There’s no sure way to tell by looking at a low-alc bottle of wine how the winemaker achieved the style. My biggest piece of advice is to consider if the winery or brand was created in recent years and makes only low-alc wines. If that’s the case, I’d suspect they are using de-alcoholizing technology.

I’d also be wary of labels that prominently boast about the wine’s low alcohol content. High quality, naturally low-alc wines typically don’t need to rely on their alcohol content as a selling point.

—Dr. Vinny