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A bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps a bottle of non-alcoholic rosé instead? Not in New York.
Wine lovers shunning booze for “Dry January” may be driven to call the whole thing off, given the shockingly limited availability of alcohol-free wines in New York liquor stores.
And it’s not for lack of supply either: There’s a slew of trendy non-alcoholic wines hitting the market, such as those from Fre and Ariel Vineyards. But you probably won’t be able to find them here.
Ironically, the guilt-free beverages are surrounded in strict legal language in New York, which limits what stores can sell. Under the Alcoholic Beverage Law, licensed liquor stores have a specific list of items they are allowed to sell and “non-alcoholic wine is not one of the items,” according to reps from the New York State Liquor Authority.
The laws were created in the 1930s and have been amended many times since. In fact, liquor and wine stores couldn’t sell gift bags to put wine in until 2016. Now, under Section 63, common-sense items such as corkscrews, ice and, yes, gift bags are OK to sell.
“It’s state law that we can’t sell non-alcoholic wine,” says an assistant manager at Wine Emporium on the Upper East Side who asked not to be named. “Supermarkets can sell certain things, we can sell others. That’s why you don’t see White Claw in wine stores either.
“The laws are confusing, even to vendors and suppliers — like how Duane Reed sells Chateau Diana,” he says, referring to the “wine product” that’s sold in NYC’s drugstores. Really, it’s nothing more than a 6% alcohol by volume juice-like drink.
And, the definition of “non-alcoholic wine” is equally as confusing as the laws. Some manufacturers, such as Long Island winery, Wölffer Estate, for example, make items such as “Petite Rose,” which is an “alcohol-free juice beverage” made with grape juice and water.
“That would be a food product, so we can’t sell it,” says Michael Correra, 50, owner of Michael-Towne Wine & Spirits in Brooklyn Heights and executive director of the Metropolitan Package Store Association, which has been lobbying on behalf of the state’s independent liquor stores since 1934.
Correra tells The Post that he sells a “de-alcoholized” wine from Ariel Vineyards, which makes a chardonnay and a cabernet sauvignon using “reverse osmosis” that removes more than 99.5% of the alcohol through a “gentle cold-filtration process,” according to the company’s website.
“It’s real wine but with the alcohol removed, so we can sell it,” Correra says.
Fre, which is made by Sutter Home, makes a selection of what they call “alcohol-removed” wines (merlot, red blend, moscato, cabernet and more) from fermented grapes. They use “state-of-the-art spinning cone technology” to get the alcohol out, according to their website.
Correra says that with all these new products coming on the market, he thinks it might be time to work on some updated legal language — since many stores might not know they can sell the stuff.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for non-alcoholic wine, your best bet might be to head to less-strict New Jersey, where it’s sold at most wine stores, including chains such as Total Wine & More. Or, take advantage of your Amazon Prime membership: Numerous brands sell through the online shopping mecca.
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