Removing Alcohol From Wine

Alcohol removal seems like it’s tinkering with nature, but alcohol has an aroma that obscures wine flavors.

Some wines are typically low in alcohol, but the lower you go, the more likely the wine is to have a bit of sugar. Svittlana/Shutterstock

For roughly the past 30 years, most California wines have had alcohol levels that were too high for me. I was reared when most of the wines in the world were about 12.5 percent alcohol; anything higher was considered to be absurd.

Critics at the time said that a wine with 14 percent alcohol was outrageous—a late-harvest wine designed to be soft and clumsy.