The best non-alcoholic champagne & sparkling wine

When you're choosing between non-alcoholic champagne brands, four things matter:

• Dryness. Real brut Champagne has very little sugar. Many alcohol-free bottles have far more. If you want it to taste like the real thing, dryness is the first thing to check.
• Acidity. Crisp, high-acid bottles taste drier and fresher, and they stand up to food and orange juice. Without acidity, alcohol-free wine tastes flat and sweet.
• Bubbles. Fine, lasting bubbles make it feel like a celebration. Bottles that are refermented, or aged before the alcohol is removed, tend to have better texture.
• Body. Toasty, bready or creamy notes, from lees aging or refermentation, give weight that alcohol would normally supply.

There are three main types in our catalogue, and they taste quite different.

Dealcoholized sparkling wine is real wine with the alcohol removed, usually by gentle vacuum distillation or a spinning cone, which boil off the alcohol at low temperature so the fruit isn't cooked. The wine is then carbonated, or in some cases fermented again to make natural bubbles. Most of the catalogue is this type. Leitz uses vacuum distillation; Bolle ferments its wine again after the alcohol comes out; Oddbird ages its wines before dealcoholizing, so they keep a toasty depth.

Wine proxies and alternatives aren't made from finished wine. They're blends of juices, teas, verjus, botanicals and spices, built to drink like wine. Acid League's Proxies, Kally's sparklers and the numbered NON bottles are in this group. They're often drier and more complex than you'd expect, but they taste like themselves rather than exactly like Champagne.

Sparkling teas and aperitifs are bottled for toasting but aren't wine at all. Tost is sparkling white tea; Ghia Le Fizz is a sparkling bitter aperitif. They're good when you want something celebratory without pretending.

So is non-alcoholic sparkling wine just sparkling juice? The good ones aren't. Sparkling grape juice is never fermented, so it has no wine flavor and a lot of sugar. Dealcoholized wine starts as real wine and keeps its character, even if some producers add a little juice back.

Dry: closest to brut Champagne

The ones to pour if you want a dry non-alcoholic champagne that tastes like the real thing.

• Bolle Blanc de Blancs is 75% Chardonnay and 25% Silvaner. It's fermented again after the alcohol comes out, which gives it natural bubbles and a toasty, bready edge. Crisp apple, pear and citrus, with 2.8 g of sugar per bottle. Our top pick for tasting like Champagne.
• French Bloom Le Blanc is organic Chardonnay from the South of France: tropical nose, orchard fruit, a little spice, enough acidity to taste dry and a smooth body. It's built as a Champagne stand-in for toasts.
• Oddbird Blanc de Blancs is aged before the alcohol comes out, so it keeps a toasty depth: brioche, green apple and citrus.
• Noughty Sparkling Chardonnay is organic, vegan and bone-dry, with crisp green apple and pear.
• Giesen 0% Sparkling Brut from New Zealand has pear, grapefruit and lemon and a crisp, dry finish. The best value in this group.
• Lautus Sparkling Brut is a Champagne-style South African Chardonnay: white peach, citrus blossom and apple, with lively bubbles.
• Missing Thorn Sparkling White Riesling from Napa has high acidity, tart citrus, green pear and melon, and a long, dry finish.

Off-dry: a touch of fruit

Most people's favorite style: some sweetness, balanced by acidity.

• Surely Sparkling Brut is a Californian brut with a little Sauvignon Blanc and peach blended back in. Apple, pear, lemon and honey with full acidity and a dry finish; 2 g of sugar per glass.
• Leitz Eins Zwei Zero Sparkling Riesling has green apple, pear and a slate-dry finish, with a little residual sugar balanced by acidity.
• Leitz Eins Zwei Zero Sparkling Blanc de Blancs is Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc, and more aromatic: honeyed pineapple, lime, star fruit and gooseberry.
• Kylie Minogue Alcohol Free Sparkling Blanc is light and floral, with jasmine and a clean finish.
• Gruvi Dry Secco is a prosecco-style fizz in single-serve bottles: semi-dry, floral and a little tart, and 50 calories a bottle.
• Kally Golden Sparkler is made from pear and California verjus with chamomile and thyme: lightly sweet up front, dry at the end.
• Acid League Proxies Gold Crush has ripe peach, yuzu and fennel. It's built for the table, so pour it with food.

Sweeter: easy, fruity and affordable

• Mionetto Alcohol-Removed Sparkling is made from Glera, the Prosecco grape: peach and apple, a little sweet, with lasting bubbles. The best non-alcoholic prosecco for a spritz.
• Freixenet 0.0 Sparkling White is Spanish, with tropical fruit and citrus and a noticeably sweet finish (38 g of sugar per liter).
• Fre Sparkling Brut is Sutter Home's supermarket sparkler and one of the cheapest in the category: green apple, pear and strawberry.
• Wölffer Spring in a Bottle is a floral sparkling Airén with white peach, cantaloupe and a creamy mousse.

Sparkling rosé

• French Bloom Le Rosé is pale, dry and sharp, with fine bubbles and red berries. It stands up to rich food.
• Wölffer Spring in a Bottle Rosé has peach, raspberry and mango with soft tannins and a dry, mineral finish.
• Kylie Minogue Alcohol Free Sparkling Rosé adds green tea to the ferment, which gives it grip and a drier, tannic finish.
• Leitz Eins Zwei Zero Sparkling Rosé, Noughty Sparkling Rosé, Oddbird Sparkling Rosé, Surely Sparkling Rosé and Gruvi Bubbly Rosé are fruitier, berry-led options, from crisp to semi-dry.
• Acid League Proxies Brut Rosé and Kally Rosé Sparkler are the dry, not-from-wine picks: tart raspberry and lemon, or strawberry and hibiscus.

Not from wine: the NON range

NON's sparkling bottles don't try to taste like Champagne. Each is built around two flavors named on the label, and they're best thought of as food wines.

• NON1 Salted Raspberry & Chamomile is sweet and salty, with raspberry up front and chamomile giving it gentle tannin and a floral finish.
• NON2 Caramelised Pear & Kombu is bold and buttery: roasted pear with kombu minerality and a lingering spice finish.
• NON5 Lemon Marmalade & Hibiscus is tart citrus over a floral hibiscus body, with a cool menthol lift. It's the aperitivo-hour bottle, and the one for a spritz.
• NON4 Roast Beetroot & Sansho is toasted, savory and vegetal, with charred beetroot and sansho pepper; a sparkling red in all but name.
• NON7 Stewed Cherry & Coffee is rich stewed cherry and spice with an undertone of coffee. It contains caffeine.

For a wedding or a toast

For the best non-alcoholic champagne for a wedding, you want a bottle that looks and tastes like the real thing in a flute, so nobody feels like they have the kids' drink. French Bloom Le Blanc is made for exactly this. Bolle Blanc de Blancs is the driest and most Champagne-like. For a big guest list on a budget, Giesen 0% Sparkling Brut is crisp and dry, and Fre Sparkling Brut is fine for a toast. Chill it hard and pour it into the same glasses as everyone else's.

For mimosas

Orange juice is sweet, so use a dry bottle: Giesen 0% Sparkling Brut or Surely Sparkling Brut. Budget bottles like Freixenet 0.0 work too; just use less juice. Our full guide to the non-alcoholic mimosa has a dryness ranking and a mimosa-bar plan.

For pregnancy

Most dealcoholized wines contain a trace of alcohol, up to 0.5% ABV, which is why US labels call them "non-alcoholic" rather than "alcohol-free." Many bottles go lower, and some reach 0.0%. If you want non-alcoholic champagne for pregnancy and prefer to avoid any trace at all, check the label for 0.0% ABV, or choose a sparkler that was never wine: Tost Sparkling White Tea, Tost Rosé, Kally Golden Sparkler or Acid League Proxies Gold Crush. As always, ask your doctor or midwife if you're unsure.

For dinner

Pick one with acidity and some body. French Bloom Le Rosé stands up to rich food; Leitz Eins Zwei Zero Sparkling Riesling is good with seafood; Surely Sparkling Rosé goes with sushi or smoked fish; Lautus Sparkling Brut with salty, fried food; and Kally Rosé Sparkler with oysters or charcuterie. The NON range is made for the table: NON2 for cheese boards and roasts, NON4 for greens, ragu and wood-fired food, and NON7 for dark chocolate and charcuterie.

For low sugar

For a non-alcoholic sparkling wine that's low in sugar, look for stated figures. Bolle Blanc de Blancs has 2.8 g per bottle and Surely Sparkling Brut 2 g per glass; Noughty Sparkling Chardonnay is described as bone-dry. Gruvi Dry Secco is 50 calories a bottle.

For a spritz

Mionetto is the closest cheap stand-in for Prosecco in a spritz. Tost Sparkling White Tea is dry and grown-up as a topper. For a quick elderflower spritz, add half an ounce of Belvoir Elderflower Syrup Mixer to a glass of dry bubbles and top with soda.

For something different

Ghia Le Fizz is a sparkling bottle of Ghia led by strawberry and orange blossom, a touch sweet, tart and dry at the finish. Pour it like any bottle of bubbles.

The easiest way to dress up a toast is a zero-proof Kir Royale: a splash of dark berry aperitif under dry bubbles.

If you want it drier, halve the Ghia Berry; for a pink version, use French Bloom Le Rosé instead of Bolle.

The sparklers we'd reach for first, across every style.

• Mimosa. Dry bubbles and cold orange juice, bubbles first.
• French 75. A zero-proof gin, lemon and a little syrup, topped with a dry sparkler like Bolle or Missing Thorn.
• Sbagliato. A bitter aperitivo and a vermouth alternative topped with sparkling rosé.
• Aperol spritz. An Aperol alternative, Mionetto and soda, over ice with an orange slice.
• Hugo spritz. Elderflower, mint and Wölffer Spring in a Bottle.

Alcohol-free bars usually have a proper sparkling wine by the glass, which is a good way to try a bottle before you buy a case. These are worth the trip: