Going sober and our favourite non-alcoholic wines

Our favourite alcohol free wines have bubbles.

Dry January just wrapped up. Dry Feb, a fundraising campaign from the Canadian Cancer Society, is just getting going. And there’s never been more options in the alcohol-free section of the liquor store. Going without is having a moment and we’re onboard.

Josie hasn’t been drinking alcohol for several months and it’s had a knock on effect for me – I never drank a lot and I’m drinking even less now. For us it means we’ve been sampling the various de-alcoholized wines. More on what we’ve found in a second.  

Our move towards alcohol-free isn’t a resolution or intervention. Josie ditched wine and cocktails because she feels better without. Her abstinence is giving me enough pause to heed the advice of a guided meditation I once heard. It suggested checking in before cracking a beer or pouring a glass to ask yourself why. It’s not a judgement. Any answer is okay. What I find is most of the time I don’t have a good reason. Usually I’m doing it out of habit or because I’m thirsty, in which case its counter productive. When I make that realization I sometimes still make myself an Old Fashioned. But more often I pour a glass of water or boil a cup of tea instead.

It’s easier to do knowing the health implications. The Canadian Cancer Society is discouraging alcohol consumption for a good reason. There’s strong evidence connecting nine different types of cancer to alcohol. This is not news. We’ve known alcohol is a carcinogen for more than 40 years. But for most of that time we were also told a glass of wine day was actually good for us. That changed last year, when Health Canada amended its guidelines and suggested Canadians should drink two or fewer drinks a week.

One of the challenges to ditching booze is what to drink instead. Most alternatives are sweet and often full of sugar. And we like the taste of wine. That’s led us to trying a bunch of the non-alcoholic wines in search of the ones that taste the most like the real thing. We have many more to try, but we can say the ones with bubbles are the best. Where most non-alcoholic wines finish with a juicy flavour that gives away their soberness, the carbonation confuses the palate leaving the wine tasting more like the real deal. 

Two of our favourite non-alcoholic wines.

On the sparkling side we like anything from non-alcoholic wineries OddBird or Noughty. A little fruitier flavoured, but still dry and bubbly, is the Henkell De-alcoholised Sparkling Wine. We’re still on the search for a still white that doesn’t taste like grape juice – give us your suggestions. On the red side we like the Zero Lush Red. It’s a mellow and easy drinking wine made from Spanish Tempranillo grapes. It’s a nice one to serve with food.