Labels
What nonalcoholic labels mean around the world
Sans alcool, alkoholfrei, sin alcohol, and alcohol-free do not all draw the line at the same strength. A guide to the words, what they prove, and what they do not.
The short answer
The word on the front of the bottle answers a different question in each market. Some terms name a production process, some state an alcohol band, and some are category shorthand with a legal meaning that stops well above 0.5% ABV. The Dry Standard keeps those questions separate on every review.
- A label term, a documented ABV, a production method, and a legal designation are four different facts.
- Several familiar terms legally cover drinks above 0.5% ABV in their home market.
- You can search this English-language cellar in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, or Japanese.
Four facts that travel separately
A bottle can carry all four of these at once, and each one needs its own evidence:
- The label claim — the words the producer printed: sans alcool, alkoholfrei, alcohol-free.
- The documented ABV — a sourced number, a stated ceiling, or Undeclared when no source states one.
- The production method — alcohol removed, built as an alternative from the start, fermented to finish low, or a hybrid.
- The legal designation — what a term is allowed to mean in the market where the bottle is sold.
The Dry Standard reviews drinks at or below 0.5% ABV. That is our editorial scope, not a universal legal definition, and a familiar word never widens it. How a source earns a fact is How The Dry Standard checks a claim.
The same shelf, different lines
| Where | Words you will see | What the line actually is |
|---|---|---|
| United States | non-alcoholic, dealcoholized, alcohol-removed | FDA guidance treats dealcoholized wine and malt beverages under 0.5% ABV as non-alcoholic, and reserves alcohol-free for products with no detectable alcohol. |
| European Union (wine) | de-alcoholised, désalcoolisé, entalkoholisiert, desalcoholizado, dealcolato, desalcoolizado, gedealcoholiseerd | EU wine law names a wine de-alcoholised at or below 0.5% vol. Above that it is partially de-alcoholised, which can still be several percent. |
| England | alcohol free, de-alcoholised, low alcohol, no and low (NoLo) | Voluntary guidance sets alcohol free at 0.05% ABV for drinks alcohol was extracted from, de-alcoholised up to 0.5%, and low alcohol up to 1.2%. |
| France (wine) | vin désalcoolisé, sans alcool, 0,0 % vol. | The legal name is vin désalcoolisé. Sans alcool may sit beside it up to 0.5% vol; vin sans alcool is not a legal denomination, and a 0,0 % claim has its own stricter conditions. |
| Germany (wine) | entalkoholisierter Wein, alkoholfrei | The legal name is entalkoholisierter Wein. Alkoholfrei may be added, and from 0.05% vol the label also states (< 0,5 % vol). |
| Spain (beer) | cerveza sin alcohol, 0,0 | Legally, cerveza sin alcohol is beer under 1% vol. A Spanish 0,0 is a commercial indication, not the legal category name. |
| Italy (beer) | birra analcolica | Legally, beer at or below 1.2% vol (within a Plato range). An Italian birra analcolica can sit outside this cellar entirely. |
| Portugal (beer) | cerveja sem álcool | Beer at or below 0.5% vol; low-alcohol beer sits above that, up to 1.2%. Same words as Spain, different line. |
| Japan | ノンアルコール | A voluntary industry code, not a statute: a non-alcohol beverage is 0.00% ABV, tastes like alcohol, and is intended for adults of 20 and over. |
Thresholds above were checked against official sources on October 21, 2026. Two changes are already enacted in the EU with future application dates: from September 19, 2027, EU wine rules tie “0.0%” beside alcohol-free language to at most 0.05% vol and allow “alcohol-reduced” for dealcoholized wine above 0.5% vol reduced by at least 30%. England consulted in 2023 on moving its alcohol-free descriptor to 0.5%; that proposal has no confirmed outcome, so this page keeps the current voluntary guidance.
Words that name a process, not a strength
Dealcoholized (also de-alcoholised, désalcoolisé, entalkoholisiert, desalcoholizado, dealcolato, gedealcoholiseerd) says alcohol was removed from an alcoholic liquid. It does not state the final number by itself, and it does not name the machine. When a producer names the equipment — vacuum distillation, spinning cone column, reverse osmosis, membrane filtration — we print it. When they do not, the method line reads Undeclared. The longer version is Dealcoholized is not the same as nonalcoholic.
Alcohol removed is the US form of the same production language. Zero proof is spirits language for the alcohol-free occasion; it says nothing about how the drink was made. A built wine or botanical alternative was never wine, whatever language the label uses. Production type is decided from sourced evidence on each review, never inferred from the ABV.
Numbers: the comma is punctuation, the band is the fact
Most of Europe writes decimals with a comma: 0,0 % and 0,5 % vol are the forms printed in EU legal texts. Search this cellar either way — 0,0% and 0.0%, 0,5% and 0.5% return the same band. Stored ABV data is unchanged; only the query is folded.
The bands themselves stay distinct. 0.0% is a stated residual. Under 0.5% is a ceiling that can hide anything from 0.05% to 0.4%. Neither is upgraded into the other, and “alcohol-free” on a front label is not upgraded into 0.0% either. The full split is 0.0% vs <0.5%: what’s the difference?.
Search this cellar in your own words
This site is written in English, and its language markup says so — there are no translated editions pretending otherwise. Search, however, understands the terms above. Try:
- Vin sans alcool, alkoholfreier Wein, vino sin alcohol, vinho sem álcool, alcoholvrije wijn, or ノンアルコールワイン for nonalcoholic wine.
- Bière sans alcool, alkoholfreies Bier, cerveza sin alcohol, birra analcolica, or cerveja sem álcool for nonalcoholic beer.
- Vin désalcoolisé, entalkoholisierter Wein, or gedealcoholiseerde wijn when the production history is the point.
A terminology search finds the category; it does not promise that every result states 0.0%, and broader home-market terms such as no and low or low alcohol return only this cellar — nothing between 0.5% and 1.2% is listed here. When the exact residual matters, use the ABV filter on the results page and read the sourced figure on each card. Category browsing starts at Reviews, and the classification pages explain Dealcoholized, Alternative, Naturally low alcohol, and Hybrid in English.
What this page does not claim
It is not legal advice and not a promise that any bottle complies with the rules of the market you are standing in. Label law differs by jurisdiction and beverage, guidance can be voluntary, and two enacted EU changes apply from 2027. What we can promise is narrower: on every review, the printed claim, the documented ABV, the production classification, and the evidence behind them are kept visibly separate — in whatever language you arrived.