Method
Vacuum distillation
Alcohol is boiled off under reduced pressure so the wine or beer never has to reach a kitchen-stove temperature.
Under vacuum, ethanol leaves a liquid at a much lower temperature than it would at atmospheric pressure. Wine producers often cite a boiling range in the mid-20s to around 30°C. The promise is simple: take the alcohol, leave the aromatics.
Leitz describes this as the basis of Eins-Zwei-Zero. Thomson & Scott describes vacuum distillation with aroma recovery for Noughty. The method is old enough to have a patent history in the early twentieth century; Carl Jung’s name still appears on trade sheets.
It is still heat. It is still a still. Delicate thiols and the perception of body can thin out. Residual sugar is often used to put weight back. When a producer will not name the temperature or the column, treat “gently dealcoholized” as marketing until a technical note appears.
25bottles reviewed with this method. Other methods are listed below.
From the cellar
