Production
Is dealcoholized wine actually wine?
It was wine, then the ethanol was removed. A tea or botanical bottle that never was wine is a different object.
Dealcoholized means a cited source shows alcohol was removed from an alcoholic liquid. For wine, that liquid was fermented grapes. The bottle is what remains of a wine. It is not a flavor built to imitate one.
That is a production fact. It is not a score, and it is not a ruling about what a regulator must print on a label.
What it is not
A built wine is constructed for the wine occasion from tea, fruit, verjus, or botanicals. It can be the better drink at dinner. It did not begin as wine. See What is a built wine? Putting both on one shelf labeled “non-alcoholic wine” is how people buy the wrong bottle. Dealcoholized is not the same as nonalcoholic.
The glass still has to work
Removing alcohol does not preserve the wine. Body thins. Sugar reads louder. Acid has to do more of the work. A clumsy dealcoholized wine can lose to a well-made alternative on pleasure and still be the one that was actually wine. We score the drink. We classify the process on a separate line. How we score.
In the cellar
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