Alcohol adjustment of wine

There are several reasons why the adjustment of alcohol levels in wine may be desirable:

Adjustment of the ratio of flavour to alcohol in order to improve the quality of full strength wines (sweet spot). This allows winemakers to harvest fruit according to flavour requirements instead of not sugar levels. After fermentation, alcohol can be removed to provide a full flavoured wine without the 'heat' associated with high alcohol levels.

Production of reduced alcohol wines and other low alcohol beverages.

The Spinning Cone Column (SCC) has been used commercially to adjust alcohol levels for over 20 years. Reduction of the alcohol content of a wine is accomplished using a two-pass process: A portion of the wine to be treated is separated from the bulk wine and processed through the SCC twice. The first pass captures all the delicate volatile aroma compounds of the wine which are then stored separate to the remainder of the wine. The aroma-stripped wine is passed again through the SCC to remove the majority of the alcohol. The de-alcoholised wine portion and the flavour portion are then blended with the bulk of the wine to give a finished product at the desired ethanol content. Other methods of alcohol reduction such as evaporation or filtration cause the loss of many vital flavour compounds and require a far greater volume of wine to be processed.

Benefits offered by the Spinning Cone Column include:

• Delicate, varietal aromas are recovered intact.
• Precise control over operating parameters
• Production of high quality, high strength spirit during alcohol removal phase.

There are almost 600 users of Spinning Cone Column technology for alcohol reduction of wines in California. These wineries have found that even a slight reduction of alcohol can lead to improved flavour complexity. Click here to find out why.

Click here to see a comparison of Spinning Cone Column (SCC) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) for alcohol reduction.

Click here to read what
the Wine Spectator
says about the SCC.