The big story in free-from is zero-alcohol wine, which has come from a low base to suddenly be of real interest, along with other no-alcohol drinks offerings such as gin and beer.

This isn’t a new thing, however. Weingut Carl Jung in Rudesheim, in Germany’s Reingau region, began making alcohol-free wines in 1908 and today makes more than 15 million bottles a year, mostly for client wineries. It only produces alcohol-free wine, and these are now in strong demand. Torres, in Catalonia’s Penedès region, has been making its Natureo series of wines for many years now. The technology involved is either low-temperature vacuum distillation ( Jung uses this) or the spinning cone (used by Torres). Both are similar in that they fractionate the wine by using a vacuum to lower its boiling point (the distillation process), then keep the first fraction (the aromatics), discard or reuse the second (the alcohol) and blend back the aromatics into the dealcoholised wine.

This all sounds amazing, but the problem is that alcohol contributes a great deal to the wine and when it is all taken away the wine tastes hollow and the impact of the aromatics has changed. Many aromas the alcohol was masking or hiding now emerge and a dealcoholised wine with no further processing tastes weird. A lot of work has gone into how to change this, and some varieties and styles respond better than others. Usually, a dose of sugar is added – around 40 grams per litre – to replace the effect of the alcohol on the palate, without making the wine taste overly sweet.

With no alcohol and some sugar, these wines need to be sterile filtered and have adequate protection from sulphur dioxide. This means they are quite processed, which runs counter to the desires of many free-from consumers. But this is a growing category at the moment.

Along with zero-alcohol, there is some momentum behind low-alcohol products, which are often labelled as low calorie to target those who are diet conscious. But the zero-alcohol category seems to be where most of the action is.

And the other free-from story? Vegan wine is now a thing. Many wines have this status on the back label, but what does it mean? What disqualifies wine, which is basically fermented grape juice, from being vegan? It’s the use of animal-derived products in the winemaking process. These aren’t additions, in that they don’t stay in the final wine, but are termed processing aids, and their main use is in fining. The animal-based products commonly used include egg and milk-derived proteins, or isinglass (from fish), which are used to clarify the wine. The remainder is then removed by decanting the wine off the lees, or by filtration. The issue is that traces may remain, and this isn’t acceptable to many vegans. Hence the term vegan wine where plant-based fining agents are used, or no fining is used. Not all producers who make wines that qualify will label their wines this way, and often it is the larger retailers who are pushing to identify the vegan or vegetarian wines in their line-ups.