
Red Wine Alternative
A Spanish soft drink dressed up as red wine, made from apple juice concentrate and grape colouring rather than dealcoholised grapes.
About This Drink
Castillo de Salobreña has been made by Industrias Espadafor in Granada since 1978 — long before the current wave of AF drinks — and it shows. This is not a dealcoholised wine. It is a non-alcoholic fruit drink built from water, apple juice concentrate (1.9%), sugars, sweeteners, and grape-red colouring, designed to sit in a wine glass and vaguely suggest the real thing. It does the job within its own narrow ambition. The flavour is sweet and dark-fruited — blackcurrant and grape upfront, a faint apple note underneath, with citric acid keeping it from becoming too syrupy. Serve it cold, around 10-12°C, and it works reasonably well as an aperitif or a table companion if you just want something in a wine glass that isn't water. Where it falls short is the texture. Modern dealcoholised wines have made serious strides in body and mouthfeel; this has neither. It is thin in the way that squash is thin. If you know what you're getting — a flavoured soft drink from a warm Spanish summer tradition rather than a wine equivalent — Castillo de Salobreña is perfectly pleasant. Go in expecting wine and you will be disappointed.
Ingredients
Water, sugars, acidulants (citric acid, malic acid E-296), apple juice (from 1.9% concentrate), preservatives (E-202, E-211), sweeteners (E-952, E-954), apple flavour, colour (E-122, E-150D)





