Why is non-alcoholic wine as expensive as the real stuff?

D.D., Surry Hills, NSW

Non-alcoholic wine attracts no tax (except GST), so it probably should be cheaper than the same wine at normal alcohol strength – if the latter actually exists. In practice, wineries are unlikely to market no-alcohol and normal-alcohol versions of the same brand. They wouldn’t want us to make a direct comparison.

It’s not easy to work out how much gouging is going on. Yes, the producer of a no-alcohol wine does save on tax, but the production process is more complex and more costly than a normal wine. Is it so much dearer to produce that the tax saving is balanced out? Probably not. Why?

Let’s take the example of a reduced-alcohol wine, such as Saltram’s Pepperjack Mid Strength Shiraz. This is 7 per cent alcohol versus the regular Pepperjack Shiraz’s 14.5 per cent and they are both priced at $25. Pepperjack winemaker Richard Mattner says the Mid Strength is produced by taking a full-strength wine made from “the same or similar” grapes and removing half the alcohol.

This is done by vacuum distillation. The alcohol is boiled off in a kind of still, but it’s done at a low temperature so that the flavour isn’t damaged by heat, which is what would happen if it were distilled normally. The aromas that are lost in the vapour (along with the alcohol) are separated, captured and then added back to the wine to restore its flavour to something like the original. Then, to further improve its flavour and aroma, some of the full-strength Pepperjack Shiraz is also introduced. The result is a 7 per cent alcohol wine that does a reasonable impersonation of its regular sibling.

The Mid Strength, says Mattner, should probably be dearer since it costs more to make – but it’s not. “We’re absorbing that extra cost,” he tells me.

That’s presumably a small extra cost. So, for non-alcoholic wines, the small extra production cost seems likely to be insignificant compared to the tax saving.
We can draw our own conclusions.

Got a drinks question for Huon Hooke? thefullbottle@goodweekend.com.au