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Similar to the alcohol free beer thread, suggestions for alcohol free wine, or substitutes.
Red in particular.
The ones in the supermarkets tend to sound boring. Loads of varieties of all kinds of real wine then one bottle just labelled "Alcohol free wine". Though I've not browsed through the big supermarkets recently, mainly the smaller ones.
Substitute for me with red wine so far has been blackcurrant squash or high-juice (more fruit content). Problem is supermarkets aren't doing the blackcurrant stuff so much other than Robinsons, and all this stuff is just syrupy flavoured gunk with maybe some highly processed fruit juice. High juice better nutritionally aside from the high amount of sugar.
White is not so bad. Appletiser works well for me. Red variants of things like that don't work though. Sparkling drink substituting white is okay, but sparkling red is wrong especially with meals.
Makes me think of Tom's turnip wine from Reggie Perrin. soz
Why not use red/white grape juice?
My mum used to give us Shloer in a wine glass when we wuz kids. We felt quite posh and grown up.
there are plenty of options but the most common alcohol free red wine*eisberg* is ****ing awful.
Wife drank it at xmas due to being in the early stages of pregnancy and not wanting anyone to notice.....
even she couldn't stomach it .... but it served the purpose of looking like wine 😀
Why not use red/white grape juice?
To be honest, I've not tried. I tend to shop in the small shops and they don't usually have it. Not red. Cranberry maybe but it's too fruity and sweet.
Problem is a lot of fruit juice stuff is too sweet really.
Shloer is sparkling and mostly flavoured water with a bit of fruit juice. Doesn't work for me at all for red wine substitute.
Looking for things that will say to my brain "this is wine... almost" 😀
I'll check out plain red grape juice though.
They aren't that great unfortunately and have a tendency to taste syrupy sweet due to the addition of glycerine as a thickening agent to replicate the viscosity of regular wine. Ethanol is denser than water so when you take it out of regular wine you lose the "body" and glycerine is supposed to add that back, however has a slightly sweet artificial taste to it.
Ethanol is denser than water
Bollocks.
I've yet to try any palatable alcohol free wines. I guess it's challenging to remove such a large component of something and make it taste like the it did before. I also expect you can't easily extract just the alcohol from wine without taking a lot of the flavour components with it.
Bollocks.
you're thinking of plums, not grapes there.
I'd rather have a bloody good coffee or soft drink. There is no such thing as a pleasant AF wine.
I regularly find wine pleasant AF
Every thread needs a pedant so here goes. Surely there can be no such thing as wine that is alcohol free?
LOL @ DezB
I've heard it's all horrible btw
My Mrs likes the Rawson's Retreat red which I get from Tesco. I don't know if it's the being pregnant thing but she swears it tastes like real wine. Whereas I think it tastes like crap. Worth a try though...
Co-op Chardonnay Grape Juice is quite good as no alcoholic wine type drinks go. https://www.coop.co.uk/products/co-op-irresistible-non-alcoholic-sparkling-chardonnay-750ml
All the non alcoholic wine I have tasted was basically variations on Schloer.
The wife was trying them all out while pregnant.
Surely there can be no such thing as wine that is alcohol free?
Sure there is, it's called grape juice. See also, alcohol-free cider.
Personally Id probably stick with Vimto. Maybe diluted with lemonade if I'm feeling particularly exciting.
Problem is supermarkets aren’t doing the blackcurrant stuff so much other than Robinsons,
I tend to shop in the small shops
I can’t say I’m fussy about squash, but I’ve never had a problem finding all sorts of flavours in all sorts of larger supermarkets. Maybe you need to look in a different shop? (M&S seem to prefer selling high juice squash.)
The ones I go in used to do a variety, but now settled on orange juice squash only of their own brands or otherwise it's Robinsons. As I say, I don't tend to go to big shops. Far too much faff.
I regularly find wine pleasant AF
Indeed, and that's my problem 😀
Cougar
Sure there is, it’s called grape juice. See also, alcohol-free cider.
No Alcohol cider at least tastes vaguely like cider though. Grape juice tastes nothing like wine (or at least I've never found any that does).
Apparently you can get non-alcoholic red wine (that is to say wine that's had the alcohol subsequently removed) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eisberg-Cabernet-Sauvignon-Alcohol-Free/dp/B016WHMN90 - never seen it in any shops though
Apparently you can get non-alcoholic red wine (that is to say wine that’s had the alcohol subsequently removed) –
That's the stuff I mentioned further up. It's sodding awful. That stuff is synonymous with non alcoholic wine ....it's the Becks blue of the wine world it's in all the shops it's rancid.
There is a wide range of non alcoholic wine availible via wine shops (majestic et all) that might taste better