Zeronimo

The brand was founded by winemakers Katja Bernegger and Patrick Bayer. The starting point was Katja's pregnancy: finding no alcohol-free wines that met their palate, the couple set out to produce their own. Zeronimo builds its range from Austrian quality wines, drawing on Blaufränkisch, Pinot Noir, and Merlot grapes sourced from old vineyards of 70 or more years.

The dealcoholisation method is vacuum distillation, in which wine fermented to full strength has its alcohol removed under low pressure, preserving the aromas that heat would otherwise drive off. A patented aroma recovery process, taking three to four days, captures those volatiles during dealcoholisation and returns them to the finished wine. Sweetness comes from native organic grape must concentrate rather than added sugars, and the wines contain no additives, added aromas, tannin, or mouth thickener. Residual alcohol sits at 0.1 to 0.3 per cent.

For its rosé wines, Zeronimo uses whole-cluster pressing, where bunches are pressed intact before destemming. The range covers red, rosé, and sparkling styles. One wine in the portfolio resulted from what Zeronimo describes as the world's first dealcoholisation of a 20-year-old red wine.

Zeronimo holds halal certification from the Halal Development Council of Malaysia, opening the brand to Muslim-majority markets alongside its European home base.