Giesen 0% Merlot

Giesen 0% Merlot is New Zealand’s first zero alcohol red wine!

It’s the work of a multi million dollar R&D investment, fruit Hawke’s Bay, and some good old whizz bang technology. It’s produced using what’s known as spinning cone technology with extracts the aroma and alcohol from the wine.

Once the alcohol is removed the aroma is re-added to the body of the wine. Then the hard yards of vigorous taste-testing to make sure the wine has the mouth-feel and flavour you’d expect in a classic New Zealand Merlot. A light, easy drinking style with plum and blackberry flavours.

Scoring 85/100 with Bob Campbell MW who called it “Vibrant cherry-red with good colour depth. Soft, low acid red with dark cherry, plum and a suggestion of vanilla.”

Oh and here’s an extra tip from Bob – “On a hunch, I chilled the wine down to around 14ºC and found it quite refreshing (it was a muggy summer’s day in Auckland).”

It contains no more than 0.5% alcohol, which is the level provided by NZ law for non-alcoholic beverages. That’s roughly the same as levels that naturally occur in fruit juice.