Anyone trying a Proxy wine or wine proxy for the first time might expect to find something in their glass that tastes as much like wine as possible – just without the alcohol.
That is not the intention.
A proxy wine is not a dealcoholized wine and, at best, it is not a direct copy of one either. For us, the category begins with refinement through fermentation or distillation. Just as grape juice only becomes wine through fermentation, this is also about the transformation of a base product. Tea, fruits, vegetables, or herbs are fermented or distilled and used as a foundation for further processing into a complex beverage.
For this purpose, additional flavor layers are added: infusions, juices, herbs, spices, wood, or extracts. Not as an excessively long list of ingredients, but with a sensory function.
Because a good wine proxy doesn't necessarily try to taste like wine. It tries to understand why wine works in the glass and at the table.
ARENSBAK Rosé: inspired by wine, not copied
For us, ARENSBAK ROSÉ is one of the drinks that makes this concept particularly easy to understand.
The base is formed by fermented Longjing green tea. Subsequently, ingredients including raspberry, elderberry, hibiscus, and pink pepper are added. Oak wood provides additional structure.
ARENSBAK ROSÉ does not taste exactly like rosé wine.
But it plays with some familiar aromas and, above all, with a similar structure. It is red-fruited, possesses fresh acidity, tannin, and a certain wildness. It is precisely this that makes it more reminiscent of the world of natural wine than an attempt to replicate a classic rosé as exactly as possible.
When drinking it, you very quickly understand why this beverage can work where wine might otherwise be served.
It has grip, changes with temperature and air, and is not fully experienced after just one sip. And as soon as food is added, it begins to function in a different way.
For us, ARENSBAK is therefore still a pretty good introduction to the world of wine proxies.
And a personal one, too: about two years ago, I was able to convince Friederike of the idea behind this new world of drinks with this very beverage. What began back then with a bottle of ARENSBAK ROSÉ quickly turned into a passion of hers for something new – for drinks that define themselves not only by what they lack, but by what they make possible in terms of flavor and the philosophy of hospitality.
What actually makes wine such a good food companion?
If we want to understand wine, it is not enough to just talk about its aromas. The interplay is what is crucial.
Acidity can provide a dish with freshness. Tannin creates resistance and structure. Bitterness creates tension. Fermentation, yeasts, maturity, or wood can bring depth and length. At the same time, alcohol in classic wine provides weight, carries aromas, and influences the mouthfeel.
If alcohol is missing, you are not simply missing a number on a label.
This is exactly where the thinking behind many wine proxies begins.
Instead of taking a finished drink and subsequently removing the alcohol, the structure is rebuilt from the ground up.
The question is then not necessarily: How can we imitate a Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Noir?
But rather: What should this beverage achieve on the palate and at the table?
Where does tension come from? What provides depth? How do we create a mouthfeel that can hold its own next to a dish? And how do we create a drink where you still discover something new on the third sip?
That is a different starting point. And this inevitably leads to different drinks.
How are wine proxies created? Fermentation and distillation.
In this world, fermentation is not a decorative addition.
It fundamentally changes a raw material. Microorganisms create new aromas, break down sugar, create acidity, and change texture. Something new is created from a base product.
Distillation follows a different path, but fulfills a similar idea of refinement: aromatic components are concentrated, separated from one another, and subsequently used in a targeted manner.
For us, these very processes are at the core of what defines a wine proxy.
And here lies a difference to categories like kombucha or water kefir.
Not because these drinks are necessarily less complex. But because, in those cases, fermentation describes the actual beverage category itself. A kombucha can be finished after fermentation and intended exactly as such.
With a wine proxy, this fermented component is often just the starting point for further layers.
ARENSBAK shows this very nicely: first, a new base is created from tea through fermentation. Subsequently, further botanicals and oak are used and the drink is further developed.
Other producers ferment different ingredients separately and combine them only later. Others still work additionally with distillates, infusions, or extracts.
This creates something that can almost be compared more to cooking than to classic beverage production.
More on the No/Low categories in our guide
Feral: the wine moment without wine
The term "wine proxy" becomes particularly interesting where producers don't even use it themselves. The Italian brand Feral is a good example of this.
The name is derived from FERmented ALternative. And that is exactly how Feral understands its drinks: as botanical fermentations and not as non-alcoholic wine. Wine is not meant to be copied.
Nevertheless, they create drinks that can very accurately serve that moment many of us associate with a good bottle of wine.
Feral N°3 is based on fermented beetroot and is built up with ingredients including blueberry, black pepper, thyme, and oak.
This alone shows how unhelpful it would be to try to search for a specific grape variety in it. Although a well-known sommelier once told me with sparkling eyes that N°3 reminded him of a Pinot Nero.
The beetroot gives the drink an earthy, umami-rich depth. Pepper, herbs, and wood continue to build on this. The result is dark, structured, and bold enough not to disappear next to intense dishes.
Perhaps Feral is precisely why we find the term "proxy wine" both helpful and a little difficult.
The product doesn't actually need wine, yet it serves exactly that wine moment.
You open a bottle for dinner. You pour it into a wine glass. You engage with the drink. It changes next to a dish and takes on a similar role there, without wanting to aromatically imitate wine.
The connection to wine therefore lies less in the taste than in the structure, the application, and the drinking culture.
Villbrygg SKOG: What if it doesn't taste like wine at all?
And then there are drinks like SKOG by Villbrygg.
At this point at the latest, the reference to wine begins to dissolve almost completely.
SKOG is based on a fermented infusion of Norwegian spruce shoots, lemongrass, yarrow, and birch leaves. The drink is herbal, ethereal, and woody, with citrus notes and the freshness of young conifers.
Nothing about it actually tastes like wine.
And yet, the bottle feels completely natural at a meal.
SKOG works with smoked fish, vegetables, Nordic-inspired cuisine, or dishes with many herbs. It is also very exciting with mountain cheese or Spätzle, and at the same time, the bottle can be opened as an aperitif or poured to toast.
This is exactly what we find so exciting about this world of beverages.
With ARENSBAK, the connection to the natural wine world is still immediately understandable. Feral moves significantly further away from it aromatically, but creates a surprisingly familiar drinking moment. Finally, with Villbrygg, it becomes clear that even this flavor reference no longer needs to be necessary at all.
The drink does not have to taste like wine to take its place at the table.
© Villbrygg AS
Liquid cuisine – and why it becomes exciting at the table
Perhaps "liquid cuisine" is the description we like best in this category.
Especially with food pairing, it becomes clear what happens when you mentally detach yourself a bit from wine. That may sound strange at first – after all, we use terms like "wine proxy" precisely because wine gives us orientation. At the same time, that is exactly where one of the greatest strengths of these beverages lies.
The question no longer has to be:
Which wine would go well with this dish – and what comes as close as possible to it without alcohol?
But much simpler:
What does this dish need in the glass?
Perhaps something fresh, slightly berry-like, that brings tension and makes you want the next sip – like ARENSBAK ROSÉ.
For vegetables with strong roasted aromas or even for red meat, the darker, umami-rich structure of a Feral N°3 can create exactly the right counterweight.
And you can think even more progressively: Villbrygg SKOG with its notes of spruce, herbs, and citrus for a dish that itself is reminiscent of the forest – mushrooms, roasted components, perhaps some fish. Then the drink doesn't just accompany the food, but continues its aromatics.
This is exactly where food pairing with wine proxies becomes particularly interesting for us. You don't have to try to translate known wine pairings as exactly as possible. You can start from the dish itself and consider which freshness, structure, depth, or aromatics would be exciting alongside it.
You are allowed to start from scratch. Actually, you really should.
Will wine proxies still need wine at some point?
I'm not entirely happy with the term wine proxy – or proxy wine.
"Proxy" means representative. This keeps wine linguistically as the original, while the new drink seemingly only takes its place.
At the same time, the term is currently helpful.
It provides orientation. It explains why these drinks often come in 750ml bottles, why we open them for dinner, pour them into a wine glass, and why, at best, they aren't fully exhausted after the first sip.
Perhaps we still need this reference.
But the most exciting producers have long shown that something independent is emerging from this. They don't try to replicate something known without alcohol as precisely as possible. They use the freedom to rethink taste, structure, and the moment of drinking.
Wine might currently still provide the language with which we explain these drinks. Things will get interesting where they begin to develop their own.
