ABOUT THIS EPISODE
What happens when you take a winemaker who never planned to work in alcohol-free wine, and hand him the job of making it actually taste like wine?
Aaron Milne fell into it almost by accident. A winery job during his studies happened to be run by the same people leading Australia's zero-alcohol scene, and a "one year, just to learn it" detour turned into a career. In this episode of The Wined Up Podcast, Trent sits down with Aaron, winemaker for Eden Vale, to pull apart what actually happens when you strip the alcohol out of wine, and why it's so much harder than it sounds.
Aaron walks through the process, from the early days of simply boiling off the alcohol, to vacuum distillation, spinning cone columns, and now single-pass equipment that separates the essence, removes the alcohol and returns the flavour. But the technical side is only half the story. Alcohol carries weight, sweetness and length on the palate, and once it's gone, a wine can turn "fossil dry" almost overnight. Reds are the real test: strip the alcohol from a Cabernet and the tannins and colour compounds that depended on it start to fall apart, which is why Eden Vale's Coonawarra Cabernet is described as the Everest of the whole project.
The conversation also gets into the culture around no and low alcohol wine: why traditional wine drinkers have been resistant, the idea of "vinosity" as the actual goal, and the rise of the "zebra drinker" -- people who move between full-strength and zero wine in the same session rather than choosing one camp for good. Aaron also touches on where the category is heading, including the mid-strength range he thinks holds the most promise over the next five to ten years.
It's an honest, occasionally very funny look at one of the more overlooked corners of the Australian wine industry, and what it actually takes to make something that isn't wine taste like it belongs at the table with food anyway.
Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, SBS and Cabernet all make an appearance, alongside a story about a 98 Grange, a fire drum, and Snoop Dogg.
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Go check out edenvalle.com.au
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## YouTube Chapters
00:00 Can Wine Still Be Wine Without the Alcohol?
0:56 Grange, Snoop Dogg and the Icebreaker Questions
5:59 How Aaron Fell Into Winemaking by Accident
8:03 Ending Up at the Frontier of Alcohol-Free Wine
10:33 Why Eden Vale Exists in the First Place
12:58 From Boiling It Out to Vacuum Distillation
16:12 The Real Fight Is Replacing What Alcohol Does
24:09 The Expensive Mistakes Along the Way
25:48 Why Whites Are Easy and Reds Are Brutal
32:53 Chasing Something Called "Vinosity"
36:14 The Rise of the Zebra Drinker
44:03 Taking On the Everest of Zero-Alcohol Wine
50:35 Where Low and No Alcohol Wine Is Headed Next
Follow Us on YouTube (@TheWinedUp), Instagram (The.Wined.Up), Tik Tok (@TheWinedUp), Spotify (The Wined Up), Amazon Music ( TheWinedUp), and Apple Podcasts (The Wined Up). Visit our website https://www.thewinedup.com.au or email us at info@thewinedup.com.au.
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