For some people it is strange: why does an alcohol-free wine have a THT or BBD date, while this is not the case for alcoholic wines? Don't wines often improve with age?
By law, almost all foods must have a THT (best before) or TGT (use by) date, so that the consumer knows whether a product is still good. For vegetables, fish or yoghurt, this is of course very important to prevent you from getting sick, for example from spoiled fish. Here too, the advice is increasingly applicable: "Is a product past its THT date? Look, smell, taste." For products with a longer shelf life, where the date is often one or two years after the production date, this is less relevant. I know few people who throw away coffee or flour as soon as it is past its date.
There are some exceptions to this rule, such as fresh bread, fruit and wines with more than 10% alcohol. For these products, a best-before date is not mandatory. However, there is something special about wines. Traditionally, we know that some wines improve with age. For alcohol-free wine, this has hardly been studied. Some theories state that maturation is impossible because the alcohol is missing, while others claim that it is possible.
For example, Leitz recently launched a Pinot Noir Reserva that has improved in taste through maturation. In Austria, a brand has dealcoholized 20-year-old wines and sold them as “Millennium Brand”. We ourselves have also tasted bottles of Cognato Red that tasted better after two years than at the beginning. For this reason, we have a stock of about 20 boxes of Kolonne Null Cuvée Rouge No. 1 in the cellar. Despite the fact that the best-before date on the bottles has long since passed, we notice that the wine only gets better. This is also a reason for us to sell some wines when they are a bit older and the best-before date on the bottle has already passed.
We regularly taste these wines together with our guests in the liquor store, so that everyone is satisfied with the product.
Cheers!
