Bolle Non-Alcoholic Wines
“I opted for a new approach, namely fermenting juices without producing alcohol. Revolutionary Zero Gradi Technology sits at the very heart of the Bolle mission, a collaboration with a leading bio-tech company to establish a unique process whereby yeast is able to consume the sugars in the juices to produce wine-like flavours, but not turn them into alcohol.’ ”
REAL WINE FOR N/A DRINKERS
The Bolle story
The Terroir team has spent years tasting and rejecting n/a wines, mostly because they’re chemical soups that taste truly awful. Bolle is actually different.
Like most n/a wines, it’s fermented and then de-alcoholized using a distillation process to “boil off” the alcohol. That process tends to kill flavor, strip aromatics and totally mess with the wine’s balance. Then the base wine is tarted up with flavors, sugars, textural modifiers and acidity to approximate the mouthfeel of real wine. That’s not winemaking, that’s DuPont.
“Bolle is fast becoming the best non-alcoholic wine brand in the category... pulling ahead because of their technology and innovation.””
To avoid these pitfalls, Bolle starts with a patent-pending strain of Saccharomyces cerevisia - the “brewer’s yeast” used for thousands of years to make beer and wine. Bolle’s strain produces only 3-5% alcohol from fully ripe grapes. Bolle then removes that alcohol using vacuum distillation to avoid thermal breakdown of flavor and aroma components, creating a dealcoholized base wine.
The zero-alcohol wine is then dosed with fresh juice, and fermented a second time to rebuild the flavor and aroma components while keeping the alcohol content below 0.5% in the final blend. This second fermentation process is unique to Bolle and creates a truly “wine-y” flavor and mouth-feel.
Bolle’s sparkling wines are further unique in that the secondary fermentation is performed in cuve close, so that the wine becomes naturally sparkling. This is the same process used to produce Italian Prosecco, and creates a finer, more stable mousse than the typical CO2 injection method used on other n/a bubbles.
“Ingredients: Grapes, yeast, sulfites. Nothing else.”
Finally…
n/a wine for wine drinkers.
The wines
Chardonnay: a blend of 85% Chard and 15% Silvaner, sourced in Castilla-La Mancha, twice fermented and finished with 3.5% residual sugar to balance its bracing acidity.
Rich stone fruit, crisp apple, a hint of citrus, it has the weight and depth to stand up to food without fighting it. No bubbles, no fuss. Just wine. Perfect with: roast chicken, creamy pasta, grilled fish, or a cheese board…
Rose: A Provence style pink crafted in California from a blend of 44% Grenache, 43% Cinsault, 7% Carignan, and 6% Mourvèdre. Crisp acidity with 2.8% RS.
Fresh raspberry and cherry rise from the glass, with hints of watermelon and pink grapefruit -- crisp, mineral-driven, and bone dry, with a touch of peppery spice and an elegant medium-light body that lingers long after the last sip.
Sparkling Blanc de Blancs: 75% Chard, 25% Silvaner from Castilla-La Mancha, twice-fermented and finished with 2.8% RS. 91pts from the Wine Enthusiast, and Best N/A Wine from none other than Forbes Magazine.
A mix of crisp orchard fruits squeezed over citrus opens this crisp, balanced sparkling non-alcohol wine, while flavors broaden and lengthen, picking up a mouthwatering zest through the finish.
Sparkling Rose: A blend of 75% Chardonnay + 15% Pinot Noir + 10% Silvaner from Castilla-La Mancha, twice fermented and finished at 2.8% RS. A whopping 93pts from the Wine Enthusiast and included in their “Top Forty Sparkling Wines Worldwide” (both n/a and alcoholic!!).
A clear, light pink; medium intensity nose with aromas of white strawberry, red berries, black currant and violets. Light bodied with medium acidity and a lingering finish of fruit with a touch of minerality.
Roberto
Founder Roberto Vanin hails from Treviso, the heart of Prosecco country. He grew up with sparkling wines as the core of every festive event, and in his home region, Prosecco is often referred to simply as “bubbles” … bolle.
“[M]y bias, especially against non-alcoholic sparkling wine, was recently challenged in the best possible way. I tasted Bolle Sparkling Non-Alcoholic Wines.”
“We tried the Bolle sparkling Rosé and were quickly convinced: this is probably the best NA wine we have tasted so far. Did it remind us of Blanc de Noir sparkling wine? Yes. Would we accept a second glass? Absolutely. The wine was nicely balanced, dry, but with some of the fruit that we have found missing in earlier “second glass” trials. Whatever they are doing at Bolle the results are excellent.”