During this pregnancy, I've tested about 20 different 0% alcohol wines. If you're a beer or gin drinker, there are excellent no-alcohol or low-alcohol substitutes, but I've found 0% wines to be rather hit-and-miss, so I thought I'd share my favourites for any fellow wine lovers who are pregnant, doing Sober October, teetotal, the designated driver, or just trying to cut back.
First up is Oddbird (available at Harvey Nichols and Amazon), a Swedish brand producing world-class wines liberated from alcohol. Created by Moa Gürbüzer, after enlisting the help of Champagne expert Richard Juhlin, Oddbird aims to change drinking norms across Scandinavia and the world. As a Champagne lover, I was delighted to discover their blanc de blancs- made from 100% chardonnay grapes grown in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, picked young and aged for 12 months - which is the best 0% sparkling and closest to Champagne I've tried. Oddbird's sparkling roséis made from a chardonnay and pinot noir blend, and excellent too. The new white is a garganega and vespaiola blend from the Veneto region of Italy - it's lovely, fresh, low intervention and 100% organic. I haven't tried it, but there's also an alcohol-free spumante for prosecco lovers.
Belle & Co(available at Amazon and Ocado) is a British brand producing a soft, slightly sweet, fruity - but not cloying - sparkling which recently won the IWSC Bronze Award. The rosé is good, but the brut is great.
Lastly, the very cautious onefrom Australian producer De Bortoli (available at Ocado) is a fruity, perfumed gewürztraminer and riesling blend balancing off-dry, acidity and freshness, which recently scored 91 points at the IWSC 2020 awards.
