Review: Le Naturel’s Red Zero Zero

I’ve mentioned before that red wine was one of my go-to’s when I was drinking, but I haven’t done any posts featuring a red wine so far. If you haven’t discovered this for yourself already, this is because it is very difficult to create an accurate non-alcoholic red wine. The sparkling and white varieties are usually much closer in taste, look, and smell to their alcoholic counterparts (particularly sparkling - my working theory is that the carbonation helps disguise the lack of alcohol, but more on this at a later date!). 

Anyways, back to red wine. Typically red wine is more full-bodied than white wines, which seems to be a hard characteristic to master without alcohol. For anyone not familiar with this term, ‘full-bodied‘ describes the heaviness or viscosity of the wine, meaning the wine will feel thick in your mouth. This is why people often refer to the ‘legs’ of red wine (droplets of wine that form on the inside of the wine glass). The other problematic characteristic is the dryness of red wine. Dryness is determined by the duration of the fermentation process - when the sugars in the grapes are converted into alcohol during fermentation. The longer the fermentation process, the less residual sugar there is in the wine, making the wine more dry. 

So to summarize, red wine seems to need the alcohol a bit more than white or sparkling wines when it comes to creating non-alcoholic versions. Therefore, a good red wine is pretty hard (but very exciting) to find. 

With that, let me introduce you to Zero Zero Red by Le Naturel! First of all, the bottle is very elegant and instantly makes you want to pick it up. The wine is from Spain, so when you do pick it up, don’t be surprised to find the label is first written in Spanish. Color wise, it’s closer to that of a pinot noir or a red blend, rather than a cabernet sauvignon. It has a nice aroma. I am in no way, shape, or form a Sommelier (so this could be completely off base), but I’m getting hints of fruitiness – more like a deep fruitiness, so not a sweet smell. In non Sommelier speak, it smells like wine. 

It does NOT have a sweet finish like most of the non-alcoholic reds I’ve tried (thank you A/F gods!). I’m even getting a bit of the dry finish characterizing most red wines. It doesn’t have the same viscosity of alcoholic red wines, but it also doesn’t seem to have quite the same density as grape juice, so I’ll take it. 

Overall, I do think this is the closest non-alcoholic red wine I have found! After my first glass, I immediately poured a second (and I wasn’t even around other people drinking!). As a former red wine connoisseur, this definitely satisfied my craving and I will 100% be purchasing more of it! I also had my boyfriend Matthew try it who said, “Wow! This really tastes like real wine!”, and it’s hard to get a much better review than that when exploring non-alcoholic wine. 

I also want to add for any other former red wine drinkers reading this, the placebo effect is real. As I was holding this glass of red (note: this must be drank from a wine glass), this calm, relaxed feeling washed over me. I have tried countless ready-to-drink and other mocktails using relaxing supplements and herbs and none of them can compare to the feeling I get simply by holding this glass of red wine. To be clear, I’m not saying that those drinks don’t work (they do and I’m a big fan of them), but if red wine was also your quick fix for a stressful day, try this and see how you feel. 

Rating: 8.5/10
Price: $14.99
Store: Total Wine & More