Kylie’s fizz? It’s a hit! The expert’s guide to finding tasty non-alcoholic wine

Until recently, most booze-free bottles have tasted like pond water. Is it possible to enjoy life’s most civilising tipple without sacrificing taste entirely? Wine writer and TV presenter Olly Smith says pop queen Kylie Minogue and other producers are starting to create an impressive range of corkers

Kylie’s tipple will leave you spinning around (from taste, not tipsyness) (Getty)

The holy grail of wine was once perhaps the rarest, best value, tastiest or highest rated. These days the question of how low the alcohol can drop without quality plummeting is as vexing as it is inspiring.

The hospitality research organisation KAM recently shared that a whopping 5.2 million fewer adults were drinking alcohol weekly in 2023 than in 2021. Increasingly, we’re becoming a more sober lot but if you find the idea of total abstinence tough, there are plenty of noteworthy lower-alcoholic wines to choose from.

A white wine hovering around the 10 per cent mark, Portugal’s Vinho Verde is a brilliant example, providing spritzy refreshment without costing the earth. You could also try Asda’s scrumptious Torre de Lapela (10 per cent), a snip at £5.50.

By choosing reds from countries with cooler climates such as the UK, grapes will generally have lower sugars to convert to alcohol. Flint Vineyard’s Pinot Noir Précoce 2022 from Norfolk is a respectable 12 per cent and you can find its silky splendour via Lay and Wheeler for £25.41.

Problems arise when brands remove the alcohol entirely to achieve even lower levels. As the wine is dismantled and reassembled, somehow the flavour and joy often seems to get stripped away. Or worse, sugar is deployed to mask the lack of depth – I’d rather suck on a half-chewed sherbet lemon that’s been rolled across a barber’s shop floor.

A system called the spinning cone separates out the alcohol but often the result doesn’t emulate wine at all texturally, leaving it feeling a little watery and tasting too bitter, overly sweet or just dreary.

In the right hands, though, it can work if the blending is meticulously managed. Kylie’s Alcohol-Free Sparkling Rosé mirrors wine by blending grapes and tea to create a 0 per cent sparkler that at £7 in Sainsbury’s offers reasonable value and additionally feels like you’re drinking something pleasantly crisp. I was pleasantly surprised.

Another fantastic example of a sparkling tea is Peony Blush (£59.70 from realdrinks.co for six bottles) which has encouraging complexity, delivering a sense of grown-up intrigue that doesn’t rely on one-dimensional sweetness for its kicks. You can also find Real Drinks Royal Flush in Waitrose for £9.50 a bottle, and I can warmly recommend both.

The pop legend showcasing her tipples at the 2023 ProWein fair in Dusseldorf (Getty)

And there’s even better news if you look beyond sparkling tea to the new wave of alcohol-free drinks delivering unique flavours. Everleaf, Mother Root and Botivo are three superb examples which will appeal to wine lovers with their nuanced layers of deftly blended ingredients, all available online. For a fruitier option, Asda’s Extra Special Non-Alcoholic Red Berries Botanical Drink (£10) is fun to serve with Mediterranean tonic water.

The world of low-alcohol beer is booming, with varying techniques keeping the booze level low, including limiting fermentation.

Over the past year sales of low-alcohol and alcohol-free drinks have grown by 20 per cent at Waitrose, with beer making the most rapid increases. Small Beer, Big Drop and Lucky Saint are brands that I regularly buy, Aldi’s Rheinbacher Pilsner offers value at £2.99 for six bottles, and my favourite to pair with a Thai takeaway is Erdinger Alkoholfrei Wheat Beer in Tesco for £1.65.

Olly’s top three to try

Bag yourself a tasty bottle

Best white wine: Zeno Alcohol-Liberated White, £9.99 at Waitrose

Best fizz: Zerozecco (0 per cent), £2.99 for a 75cl bottle at Aldi

Best rose: Kylie’s Alcohol-Free Sparkling Rosé, £7 at Sainsbury’s

And better days are dawning for low-alcohol wine. Zeno Alcohol-Liberated White (Waitrose, £9.99) is the closest I’ve tasted to a zesty white that, served cold at a party, I’d be content to raise my glass to.

Made from organic wine grapes in Spain, the makers have seriousness and pedigree – their taster-in-chief is a prestigious Master of Wine and the proof is in the pudding.

When I poured it for Robson Green recently on BBC2’s Weekend Escapes, we were perched on a paddle board in the middle of St Mary’s Loch in the Borders of Scotland (the first time I’ve worn a wet suit during a wine tasting) and it couldn’t have tasted more bracing as we plunged into the icy waters.

Fizz can offer value – Aldi’s Zerozecco (0 per cent) is just £2.99 (although it’s currently out of stock online) – and as for reds, soon enough, someone will crack it. For now, my rule of thumb is to drink less but better quality.

As far as widely available alcohol-free bottles go, Kylie’s heading in the right direction – and since she’s also got the UK’s best-selling pink prosecco brand, you can toast her success by popping her bubbly, booze or no booze. We should be so lucky…