dealcoholizing wine

[PinotEnvy]

I had to buy a bottle of Ariel dealcoholized wine because a friend that will be drinking it can't have the alcohol. That led me to wonder how do they take the alcohol out? Since heat is bad for it, I assume they don't use heat to distill it out.

[Kcwhippet]

What is most used is a device called the spinning cone column, which was invented in Australia. The wine is fed into the top of the column and falls through onto a series of spinning and stationary cones. Centrifugal force causes the wine to deposit on the surfaces in a film, and nitrogen is fed up into the column. The nitrogen carries off the flavor and aroma stuff which is then condensed and saved. What's left - essentially the water and the alcohol - is fed back in and since they have different specific gravities they separate. The alcohol is taken away somewhere and what's left is combined with what was removed in the first pass. What's you have now is - ta da - dealcoholized wine. Sounds tasty, doesn't it? Do you wonder why not too many of the folks here are not terribly enamored of non-alcoholic wine?

[Thomas]

I have it on good authority that the alcohol that is drawn off is sent directly to winoweenie by overnight express.

[PinotEnvy]

Thank you KC. Interesting. No wonder I only but it when it is absolutely necessry.

Foodie, that explains much too.

[winoweenie]

They use my Fed Ex Card so it's pre-paid. WW [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img]