The Times - UK (2022-01-01)

the times Saturday January 1 2022

Food + Drink 15

The critic’s guide to low-alcohol

wines Jane MacQuitty

JAMIE ORLANDO SMITH; JOFF LEE AND JAMES LEE; DAN JONES; FOX IMAGE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES; DAVE KOTINSKY/GETTY IMAGES

i heart Wines Zero

Sparkling, Hungary,

0.05 per cent

slurp.co.uk, £3.50

Prosecco drinkers will lap

up this crowd-pleasing,

fresh, crisp, fizzy lemon

sherbet dab of a

Hungarian sparkler.

Gratien & Meyer

Festillant, Sans Alcool,

France, 0 per cent

thewinesociety.com,

£4.25

As close to real sparkle

and pop as any producer

has got. Light, biscuity,

grapey fruit hits the spot.

2020 Hacienda de Lluna

Moscatel Rosado, Spain,

5 per cent

sundaytimeswineclub.

co.uk, £5.29

Not alcohol-free, but less

than you’d expect. Spritzy

with rose-petal charm.

2020 Low Alcohol

Garnacha-Rosé, Spain,

0.5 per cent

Tesco, £2.75

Those with a sweet tooth

will love this red-berry

pink; it’s the best of the

sub-£3 pink ilk.

Rawson’s Retreat

Cabernet Sauvignon,

Australia, 0.5 per cent

Sainsbury’s, £5

With a surprisingly rich,

earthy, curranty cabernet

sauvignon blast of sweet

fruit, Rawson’s red gets

my thumbs-up.

Lindeman’s Alcohol Free

Semillon Chardonnay,

Australia, 0.5 per cent

Tesco, £4; Morrisons, £4

A sprightly, crowd-

pleasing Aussie grape

duo, more like a crisp,

grassy sauvignon in style.

need to give up popping a celebratory

cork. Prosecco fans can try i heart’s Zero

Sparkling, or the similar but drier

Gratien & Meyer’s Festillant — or

splurge on Fortnum & Mason’s Winter

Sparkling Tea (fortnumandmason.com,

£13.25). It’s expensive but bursting with

Christmas spices, plus a smoky

Darjeeling tea note. Heck, if it was well

chilled, it would even keep me amused.

Bodegas Torres in Spain pioneered

dealcoholised wine in 2008, and its latest

styles include a more floral 2020

Natureo Muscat (Sainsbury’s, £5.50;

Waitrose, £4.99) and a fresher, juicier but

still sweet 2020 Natureo Rosé (Waitrose,

£4.99), this year made from syrah and

cabernet sauvignon. If it’s a sunny-side-

up Aussie white you want, plump for the

crisp, lemony Rawson’s Retreat Semillon

Chardonnay, with just enough honeydew

melon and pineapple to the fore

(Sainsbury’s, £5).

Dealcoholised reds are the most

difficult style to pull off, and apart from

the two star buys listed, McGuigan’s

Zero Shiraz (Morrisons, £3.50;

Sainsbury’s, £4), with its fruity, clove-

scented spice, is one of the few that

tastes even remotely like the real thing.

2020 Natureo Garnacha-

Syrah, Spain, 0 per cent

Sainsbury’s, £5.50;

Waitrose, £4.99

A rare beast: a sweet but

plummy, French oak-aged

no-alcohol garnacha,

with an appealing dab

of syrah spice.

I

f your new year’s resolutions

include going dry in January, help is

here — and the latest crop of no

and low-alcohol wines is the best

yet. Just make sure you avoid the

jammy, oxidised and yeasty no-lows

still on sale. Bar those, the rise in

quality is no surprise, given that sales in

the no/low category have grown by

almost a third between 2019 and 2020.

There are three methods for making

non-alcoholic wine. Vacuum distillation

— heating the wine to a level where the

alcohol evaporates — is my least

favourite because the jammy results lack

any real wine flavour. Reverse osmosis,

where alcohol is removed by distillation

and aromas filtered out and then added

back in, is time-consuming, expensive

and again does not have the taste of real

wine. The spinning cone column

method, widely used in the US and

Australia, is the best of the bunch, with

the alcohol spun out of the wine via a

series of cones before the aromas are

added back in. After 20 years in the

game it’s only recently that McGuigan

and other Aussies feel that they have

mastered the technique.

Just because it’s January, there’s no

McGuigan Zero

Sauvignon Blanc,

Australia, 0 per cent

ocado.com, £5

Zingy, grapefruit, lime and

lemon splash of a wine —

the best zero-alcohol

white on offer yet.

Just because it’s

January, there’s

no need to give

up popping a

celebratory cork

The best low and no-alcohol bottles

3 When the onions begin to soften —

after about 5 min — add the garlic,

ginger, 1 green chilli and the green

peppers, and cook until the onions are

completely soft and caramelised and

the peppers are soft (10-15 min in total).

4 Add the tomato puree, sugar and rest

of the ground spices. You may need to

add a splash of water to stop them

burning. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes

until the puree has turned a darker red.

5 Turn up the heat and add the passata,

followed by the soy sauce, vinegar,

roasted jackfruit and a splash of water.

Simmer on a low heat for 15 min. Taste

for seasoning. Serve topped with the

remaining sliced green chilli.

Recipe extracted from SpiceBox:

100 Curry House Favourites Made

Vegan by Grace Regan (Ebury, £20)

onion and fry for 2-3 min. Add the

mushrooms, garlic, ginger, carrot,

cabbage and red pepper and fry for

2-3 min more. Meanwhile, combine the

peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, the

juice from half the lime and the sesame

oil until smooth. Add the sauce to the

wok along with the noodles and fry for

3 min.

3 Remove the wok from the heat. Chop

the spring onions into 3cm pieces and

toss them in. Roughly chop the peanuts

and sprinkle them all over, along with

the sesame seeds and as many chilli

flakes as you like. Slice the remaining

lime half into wedges to serve.

Recipe extracted from One Pot Vegan

by Roxy Pope and Ben Pook (Penguin

Michael Joseph, £16.99)

o m c 2 p j o w 3 3 t t a t f l R b M

Grace Regan’s jackfruit jalfrezi

Method
1 First, prepare the jackfruit. Place it in a
large bowl and use your hands to tear it
up into small pieces. It should resemble
pulled pork. Add the rest of the
marinade ingredients and use your
hands to massage the marinade into
the jackfruit. Set to one side for at least
15 min and up to 12 hours. When you
are ready to cook, preheat the oven to
220C. Roast the jackfruit for 20 min, or
until it’s crisp round the edges. You will
need to stir it halfway through roasting.
2 Now make the curry sauce. Heat the
oil in a large frying pan on a medium
heat, add the bay leaf and dried red
chilli, and fry until golden. Add the
onions and 1 teaspoon of salt and turn
the heat down low to cook the onion
really slowly.

White Pink

Re d Fizz