Is Alcohol Free Wine Halal? What to look for

Observant Muslims must not drink alcoholic drinks, these are considered Haram.

Are the new breed of non alcoholic drinks allowed under Islamic Law? Is alcohol free wine Halal?

As a general rule, non alcoholic wines, labelled as “alcohol free” can be Halal. The wine needs to be 0.0% ABV for the strict Islamic Law to deem it Halal. Not all non or low alcoholic wines are alcohol free meaning it is critical to read the label.

You need to read the label carefully and decide what level of ABV the wine contains, if it doesn’t specifically say.

Below are are the UK definitions of how much alcohol is allowed to be in a wine depending on how it is branded.

Where can you buy Halal Wine in the USA?

To buy Halal Wine in the USA, follow this link for Halal Wine Cellar and use code OPENINGTHEBOTTLE for 10% discount.

To fully enjoy your wine, it is vital to drink from a great glass. Wine just tastes better from a better glass, right?!

Veritas Red

Veritas White

Veritas Champagne

Is non alcoholic wine Halal?

As you might imagine, this can be a complex topic with many variations across the world.

Im not a Muslim nor an expert in Islamic Law but any alcoholic drink or drink that can get a person intoxicated is banned or Haram.

The Prophet Muhammad says in the Quran “Every intoxicant is Khamr and every intoxicant is forbidden. He who drinks wine in this world and dies while he is addicted to it, not having repented, will not be given a drink in the Hereafter.”

Some would say that only wine or drinks from grapes are Haram but this isn’t the majority.

A general conservative view is any amount of an intoxicating liquid is banned, even a mouthful. The phrase “not even a drop” is used.

Where there may be differing practice is if an alcohol is <0.5% ABV and labelled as “non alcoholic”, can this be Halal?

You cant get drunk drinking this strength of alcohol but there is still alcohol in the liquid as i’ve shown here

I know Muslim friends of mine who are happy that this is non alcoholic and that they can drink it.

The stricter approach, and the approach taken for Halal Certification is to only drink a liquid if it is “alcohol free” with an ABV of <0.05%. For comparison, orange juice would have 0.5% ABV and vinegar 0.2% ABV.

All the Halal Certified alcohol free products have and ABV <0.05% and will be labelled as 0.0% ABV.

ABV %	Likelihood of being considered Halal
<1.2% – Low alcohol	Very unlikely to be considered Halal
<0.5% – Non alcoholic	Possibly can be considered Halal
0.0% – Alcohol free	Can be considered Halal
0.0% – Halal Certified	Should be considered Halal



There is a further consideration which i have came across on the internet, that if you are drinking a non alcoholic equivalent of an alcoholic drink, with others who are drinking alcohol, mimicking them, then this could possibly be considered Haram.

Although that takes the context of the drink a step further.

If you are just in your own home with your own family drinking a 0.0% alcoholic drink then this wouldn’t be haram for the purposes of mimicking.

In terms of alcohol free wine halal certification for example there are a number steps for a producer to make

• 1 – yeasts convert sugar into CO2 and alcohol
• 2 – alcohol is removed via reverse osmosis, vaccum distillation or filtration
• 3 – the wines are monitored by computer systems to ensure 0.0% ABV
• 4 – Internationally recognised Islamic Councils certify products have met Halal requirements
• 5 – Wines can be bottled and distributed around the world including Islamic countries.

Non Alcoholic Wine Definitions

Description on label	Maximum ABV content
Low alcohol	1.2%
Dealcoholised	0.5%
Alcohol free	0.0%

There are various wine descriptions that you may see and these correspond to differing alcohol by volume content. Low alcohol wine has an alcohol by content percentage of 1.2% ABV or below.

Dealcoholised wine is wine that has went through the fermentation process and then had the alcohol extracted either by vacuum distillation or filtration.

Dealcoholised wine must not contain more than 0.5% ABV.

The term alcohol free wine can only be used for a wine where the alcohol has been extracted, as with the dealcoholised wine, but with a remaining ABV of not more than 0.05%.

This would mean it can display 0.0% ABV on the label or state it contains no alcohol. Strictly speaking, in UK law, “non alcoholic wine” can only be used in conjunction with grape juice that is unfermented and for communion or sacramental use.

“Non alcoholic wine” however is used in common parlance to describe both dealcoholised and alcohol free wine.

The FDA state “To ensure that consumers are not misled as to the alcohol content of the product, the statement of identity should be followed by the declaration, “contains less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume.”

FDA considers use of the terms “dealcoholized” and “alcohol-removed” in the statement of identity of a reduced alcohol wine product to be misleading if the alcohol content exceeds 0.5 percent by volume (…)

FDA does not consider the terms “non-alcoholic” and “alcohol-free” to be synonymous. The term “alcohol-free” may be used only when the product contains no detectable alcohol.”

The term “alcohol-free” may only be used when the product contains no detectable alcohol

USFDA

So both USA and EU/UK both state the only terms acceptable for a “wine” containing no alcohol and at 0.0% ABV is alcohol free. All other terms may have up to 0.5% ABV and therefore not be Halal.

0.0% ABV Wines

For a wine to be considered Halal, it must display either “alcohol free” or “0.0%” on its label. Simply stating “dealcohoised” or “alcohol removed” will probably mean an ABV of just under 0.5%, which would be considered haram.

There is a growing movement of wineries providing alcohol free ranges. The Aussie powerhouses of McGuigan’s, Hardys and Lindeman all have growing zero alcohol ranges of red and white wines.

Pierre Zero from Pierre Chavin is one of the market leaders in alcohol free wine. It provides a full range of exclusively alcohol free red, white and sparkling wines along with a prestige merlot and chardonnay.

These are wines that have undergone fermentation and ageing like their regular counterparts. Before they are bottled the undergo an additional process to remove the alcohol.

This is usually by vacuum distillation or filtration. There is an ever growing number of producers in the zero alcohol space.

It is growing at over 10% CAGR so this niche is only going to get larger and more producers will fill the void.

Alcohol and Islam

Islamic law is clear that Muslims are not allowed to drink any alcohol, or any drink that may make a person intoxicated.

A “dealcoholised wine” at 0.5% is nearly impossible to get drunk on, you would need to drink litres an hour to get near it but there certainly is a detectable amount of alcohol.

There is divided opinion on the semantics of what is alcohol free or how much alcohol a drink contains.

The new 0.0%/alcohol free wines have no detectable alcohol which allows them to be halal but i understand there may be other points of law that an observant Muslim may need to take into consideration.

Certifications such as this for Pierre Zero range should provide some reassurance.

I am by no means an Islamic scholar but in research for this blog i have seen arguments that if you are drinking an alcohol free version of an alcoholic drink, in the same way or mimicking the way you would if it was alcoholic, this can be considered haram.

So seemingly after buying a Halal alcohol free wine, you may drink it with others who are drinking regular wine and this act may render the alcohol free wine haram. This is a point that you may want to consider with a local religious leader.

Halal Certification of 0.0% ABV

For regular fermented wine to have its alcohol removed is an additional process, usually in the form of vacuum distillation or cold filtration.

In the video above, you can see how alcohol can be extracted from fermented wine to achieve an ABV of 0.0% which can then be verified by the Islamic Council to certify it as Halal.

Many alcohol free wine makers have gone to this trouble but many more have not applied for the specific Halal Certification, however by law, if they are labelling their wine as alcohol free/0.0% ABV, then they will have had to meet the same standards as the Halal Certified wines.

The Pierre Chavin Zero range has a Halal certification which can be viewed here. The London Central Mosque also issued a Fatwa proclaiming the sale and resale of this range as Halal

0.0% wines without Halal Certification

To obtain a Halal Certification costs money but provides peace of mind to the end user if they are Muslim, but only a minority of producers go as far as to obtain this.

By USFDA and UK gov laws, all wines labelling as zero alcohol or 0.0% must have just that so i would suggest the risk of them having a decidable level of alcohol is negligible and we rely on country laws for all sorts of food and beverage laws.

Muslim friends of mine are happy to consider 0.0& labelled wines and beers as Halal without the certification.

Caveat Emptor

Buyer beware as they say. From my research it seems 0.0% alcohol free wine can be considered Halal but if you are in any way in doubt then you should follow your normal processes and discuss it with your local religious leader.

For 13 reasons why you should try non alcoholic wine then follow this link to my article