Chardonnay
79/100
The short takeTropical fruit and pear, oak as a soft spice rather than butter. The body holds, and the finish stays clean and lightly oaked.
Tasted Karl HillHow we score
Serve Chilled.
Who it’s for The Chardonnay drinker who wants a zero-proof version from a producer with decades of nonalcoholic winemaking experience.
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In the glass
- Nose
- tropical fruit and pear over a light oak note — Chardonnay character preserved by the cold process.
- Palate
- Round and fruity; the oak shows as a soft spice rather than butter, and the body holds better than most dealcoholized Chardonnays.
- Finish
- Clean and lightly oaked, the fruit gone and the spice still quiet.
Structure and likeness Show Hide
Structure
- Body
- Light body
- Finish length
- Short finish
How wine-like is it?
Separate from the score. A convincing resemblance is not a higher rating.
A Chardonnay that keeps its shape. Tropical fruit and pear, oak as a quiet spice rather than butter, and a body that holds better than most dealcoholized whites. The fruit leaves first. The spice stays quiet.
The wine
Whether the oak is spice or butter is answered in the middle of the sip. The body holds, which is more than most dealcoholized Chardonnays manage once the alcohol is no longer propping the middle up. Mouthfeel stays clean. Nothing woody clings, and nothing turns to vanilla.
What follows is the same oak, light, with the fruit already gone. Chill the bottle. The tropical fruit is ripe enough on its own. There is no reason to cup the glass and wait for a bigger wine. This one is already as broad as it should be.
Pear, fruit, a quiet spice. The shape of Chardonnay is intact. The buttered, heavy version of the grape is simply not here, and the wine is better for the refusal.
A lot of this category splits in two: fruit that tastes stuck on, or oak that tastes like a stave. Here the pear and the tropical fruit read as the grape, and the spice stays where Chardonnay oak belongs when nobody is proving a point. Light body, clean finish. You know which wine it is before you know anything else about it.
79 is typical of the 27 dealcoholized Chardonnay bottles we've tasted.
The bottle
Trade record, where to buy, and product facts.
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Where to buy
- Woods Wholesale Wine
- Package
750 ml
- Typical price
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$9.99 / 750 ml
- Availability
US retail and direct from arielvineyards.com; Metro Wine & Spirits
- In Washington, DC
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Named at Metro Wine & Spirits. Sourced availability note — not live inventory.
Prices and availability are independently observed and may change. Retailer listings do not imply endorsement. A different package is labeled as a different format. Reader-service exceptions and commercial links are identified above; neither affects scores, rankings, classification, verification, or editorial coverage.
Product facts
- Producer
- Ariel Vineyards (J. Lohr family, California)
- Origin
- California, United States
- Base beverage
- California Chardonnay from J. Lohr's vineyards, vinified conventionally before dealcoholization
- Bottle / can
- 750 ml
Sources & verification
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Evidence at a glance
- Producer documented8 facts
- Press sourced1 fact
- Research sourced1 fact
- Retailer sourced3 facts
- Community database1 fact
Sources
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Producer arielvineyards.com
- ABV
- Production
- Producer
- Country
- Region
- Base beverage
- Availability
Note
- Production
- Producer: fermented and barrel aged, then alcohol gently removed by proprietary process.
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Note
- Method
- arielvineyards.com now describes removal only as a proprietary process. Some retailer listings still say spinning cone column; those were not applied.
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Note
- Barcode (EAN/GTIN)
- Barcode recorded from packaging or producer listing
Product record history Sourced changes and open disagreements. Prior claims stay on the record when sources conflict.
- ReviewedReviewed and published.
- UpdatedCatalog record updated from sourced research.
- Method verified · MethodCorrected from Spinning cone column distillation at low temperature (Ariel's documented process, shared with the J. Lohr family of wines) to Reverse osmosis (J. Lohr, December 2024: patented technique at the heart of ARIEL Vineyards' winemaking process). J. Lohr press release (December 2024) states reverse osmosis for the ARIEL Vineyards process, including Chardonnay. arielvineyards.com now says only a proprietary process. Retailer spinning-cone copy was not applied.