0.0% vs <0.5%: what's the difference?

0.0% is a number a source was willing to state. Under 0.5% is a ceiling. People who will drink up to half a percent and people who want a stated zero are not shopping for the same fact.

0.0% is a stated residual

We print 0.0% when a cited source states that residual. It may be a measured zero, a rounded zero, or a house standard. We do not invent which of those it is, and we do not print it because the marketing said “alcohol-free.”

Under 0.5% is a ceiling

Under 0.5% means the cited alcohol sits above a stated zero and at or below the line most US labels use for non-alcoholic. The bottle may be 0.05% or 0.4%. The front label often will not say. We keep the ceiling visible so a 0.4% wine is not filed as 0.0%.

The split is on the review, not in a footnote

Collapsing the two bands makes the shelf look simpler and the purchase wrong. Non-alcoholic wine is not one thing is the short version. Does non-alcoholic wine contain alcohol? is the alcohol question underneath it.

Alcohol and production are separate

A 0.0% bottle can be dealcoholized wine or a formulated alternative. A bottle under 0.5% can be either, or naturally low alcohol. The residual does not tell you how it was made. Dealcoholized is not the same as non-alcoholic.