Dealcoholized red wine is the hardest technical problem in the alcohol alternatives category. White and sparkling formats have closed more of the gap with their alcoholic counterparts, but red continues to be a challenge. Consumers often describe it as thin, hollow, or unbalanced. But, in trying to mimic red wine, are producers solving for the right thing?
Dr. Mihaela Mihnea, Head of Product and Research Development at Oddbird International, leads the world’s largest research consortium in dealcoholized wines, with a research center in Alsace and academic collaborations through Örebro University in Sweden and Institute of Grapevine and Wine Sciences in Spain. Her work sits at the intersection of sensory science and product development, mapping how consumers actually experience dealcoholized red, where rejection originates, and which compositional levers translate to perceived balance.
What follows is a conversation about what the data shows and what it complicates. Among the findings: rejection isn’t about missing alcohol, mouthfeel failures are driving more of the perception gap than aroma, and some sweetened dealcoholized reds are reaching acceptance levels comparable to alcoholic counterparts. The implication for brands is that the path forward may not be closer imitation, but a more honest reckoning with what dealcoholized red can deliver on its own terms.
Dry Atlas: Your “Consumer Drivers of Preference” research looks at what actually drives liking and choice in dealcoholized red wine. What has surprised you most in that data? Where does consumer preference diverge from what the industry has assumed?
The most surprising finding is that rejection is not simply about “missing alcohol.”
In blind consumer work, some sweetened dealcoholized reds (40 g sugar/L), especially Merlot NAS and Cabernet Sauvignon NAS [Non-Alcoholic Sample], reached acceptance levels comparable to their alcoholic counterparts, even among Burgundy consumers. The divergence from industry assumptions is that consumers do not necessarily require exact replication of alcoholic wine; they respond strongly to balance, pleasant fruit expression, and absence of harsh sensory faults.
DA: When consumers reject a dealcoholized red, are they responding more to aroma, mouthfeel, or finish—and does that ranking shift between regular wine drinkers and consumers who primarily buy non-alc?
Our data suggest that rejection is usually driven by a combination of mouthfeel and taste imbalance, rather than aroma alone.
Excess acidity, bitterness, astringency, thin body, and unstable aftertaste repeatedly appear as negative drivers. Aroma matters, especially when chemical, sulphur, vinegar, oxidized, or medicinal notes are present. But for red wines the decisive gap often appears in the mouth. We are now separating these effects by consumer profile, because regular wine drinkers tend to judge against the wine reference, while non-alc consumers may be more tolerant if the product is pleasant and coherent in its own category.
DA: So it seems mouthfeel is the central technical challenge in dealcoholized red wine. How do you define and measure it in a way that translates into product development decisions, and what are the most common failure points?
We define mouthfeel as the tactile and structural experience in the mouth: body, viscosity, astringency, drying, acidity, sweetness balance, freshness, persistence, and perceived vinosity. We measure it through a combination of sensory and chemical approaches. On the sensory side, we use trained-panel profiling, RATA [Rate-All-That-Apply], JAR/penalty analysis [Just-About-Right], and consumer-adapted texture/body scales. On the analytical side, we combine this with basic oenological chemistry and phenolic characterization, including parameters such as acidity, pH, residual sugar, dry extract, glycerol-related structure, and phenolic composition linked to tannin perception and astringency.
The objective is to connect measurable compositional factors with how consumers actually experience texture and balance. This allows us to translate perception into product-development decisions: whether the wine needs more body, less acidity, softer astringency, longer persistence, or better sweetness-acidity integration. The most common failure points are thinness, excessive acidity, drying/astringency without structure, bitterness, and a short or unbalanced finish.
DA: Many dealcoholized red wines describe themselves as full-bodied, but as you’ve observed, consumers often experience them as thin or hollow. What’s actually happening sensorially in that gap between producer claim and consumer perception?
The gap comes from ethanol’s role in wine structure.
Alcohol contributes viscosity, warmth, aroma release, sweetness perception, and mid-palate weight. When it is removed, the wine matrix changes: aromas can become less integrated, acidity becomes more exposed, tannins can feel harsher or disconnected, and the mid-palate can collapse. A producer may describe body based on formulation or intention, but consumers perceive body as an integrated sensory experience. If sweetness, acidity, phenolics, aroma, and persistence are not aligned, the wine feels hollow even if one technical parameter suggests “body.”
DA: There’s a divide between consumers who want dealcoholized wine to taste as close to alcoholic wine as possible, and those who treat it as its own segment with its own expectations. Which group does your research suggest producers should be optimizing for, and why?
Our research suggests producers should not chase perfect imitation at all costs.
The strongest route is “wine-like enough to be credible, but balanced enough to be enjoyable.” Traditional wine drinkers need cues of vinosity, complexity, and structure, but consumers also accept dealcoholized wines when they deliver their own coherent sensory profile. The future segment should be built around authenticity, transparency, and sensory pleasure, not only comparison with alcoholic wine.
DA: What’s the next unsolved problem in mouthfeel perception your consortium is working toward? How far out is it from showing up in finished products on shelf?
The next challenge is to build mouthfeel back into dealcoholized red wine in a predictable way.
We need to understand which combinations of grape matrix, phenolics, acidity, sweetness, polysaccharides, aroma recovery, and processing best recreate mid-palate weight and persistence without making the product sweet, artificial, or over-processed. This is already moving from sensory mapping into product-development logic, but shelf-ready solutions will depend on validating prototypes with consumers across markets. Realistically, we are looking at incremental improvements in the near term, with more robust finished products emerging over the next few product cycles.
