Italy to lift ban on making dealcoholised wines

Following a decree passed in late 2025 to reverse the clamp-down on dealcoholised wine, Italian producers are expecting to be able to start officially dealcoholising wines inside the country “any day now”. Sarah Neish reports.

Several Italian producers at ProWein 2026 shared their excitement with the drinks business over an anticipated law change that will see a prohibition on the production of dealcoholised wines in Italy overturned.

Until now, Italian producers have had to invest significant time and cost into shipping wines outside the country to nations such as Germany and Belgium to have them dealcoholised there. “It’s not only a matter of money but also of environment and sustainability,” Aurora Semenzin, communications manager for Valdo Spumanti, told db. “We have to transport the wines for many miles,” she added, causing the company’s carbon footprint to creep up.

Late last year the Italian government approved a decree to allow the production of dealcoholised wines in Italy, and the amendment has been slowly working its way through the system. The decree sets out specific rules for both small producers (making less than 1,000 hectolitres per year) and large producers (more than 1,000 hectolitres per year), regarding the management of alcohol extracted during the process. All production must take place under a tax warehouse regime, and producers must hold an updated license in accordance with Article 28 of the Unified Text on Excise Duties.

Why was dealcoholisation banned in the first place?

According to Giancarlo Moretti Polegato, CEO of Villa Sandi, the ban was established because dealcoholised wines were perceived as “a threat” to the Italian wine industry. “Winegrowing and producing is an important activity in Italy, generating a lot of work for people,” he told db.

Polegato, who is on the board of Federvini, the Italian Federation of Industrial Producers, Exporters and Importers of Wines, described Italian producers coming together to lobby for the change, telling government “this is not a threat, but an opportunity”.

In the end, alcohol-free wine has turned out to be “a completely new category for consumers”, rather than one that takes away. “Now, people have seen this,” he said. Polegato compared the dawn of dealcoholised wines to the introduction of the Prosecco Rosé category in 2020 after years of lobbying. “When Prosecco Rosé was born, everyone was worried but it was an addition rather than a subtraction, and today represents around 10% to 12% of total Prosecco production.”

Polegato told db he expects the rule to be changed “by the end of March”, which will see an end to Villa Sandi having to ship its wine to Germany to have it dealcoholised for a product it introduced to the global market during Dry January this year. Following the law change, “we will do it [dealcoholisation] at home in Italy, saving us a lot of time and money.”

Approved methods

Italian wine business Caviro, which owns the biggest planted area in Italy with more than 36,200ha across member vineyards, told the drinks business that it is “ready and waiting” to launch a new dealcoholised product, and is just waiting on the law change to push the button.

Under the new decree, only dealcoholisation techniques recognised by the European Union Regulation 1308/2013 and by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine are permitted. These include vacuum evaporation, spinning cone column distillation, and reverse osmosis. Final products can be marketed as “dealcoholised wine” if they contain less than 0.5% alcohol by volume, or as “partially dealcoholized wine” as defined by EU limits.

As demand for no and low alcohol products continues to rise, this is welcome news indeed for Italian winemakers. According to a presentation given at ProWein by Patrick Schmitt MW on sparkling wines sales by the glass, “the alcohol-free market has grown by 200% in the last 10 years and there is a firm belief that this category is going to grow further.”