Dealcoholised Wines and Low-Alcohol Wines

It is a verifiable fact that in recent years the alcoholic strength of wines has increased significantly, probably due to climate change and also because winemakers are searching full grape maturity. Since high alcohol levels have certain drawbacks, the wine industry has a great interest in developing techniques to reduce the sugar content of the grape juice or the alcohol content in wine. In this regard, several procedures and techniques have been proposed for this purpose. The goals are reducing the alcoholic strength of wines to improve their sensory balance and also obtaining low-alcohol wines and even alcohol-free wines. This text reviews the main strategies and technologies available for reducing the alcoholic strength of wines such as viticultural and microbiological strategies, membrane-based technologies (reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, pervaporation and osmotic distillation), vacuum distillation procedures (spinning cone column) and other procedures (glucose oxidase, supercritical liquid extraction, stripping, freeze concentration and the use of unripe grapes).