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G r AP e G ro WING The buzz about de-alcoholized wine the Ariel brand, and production stands at about 80,000 cases per year. It started out as a matter of happen- I stance, Lohr says. "We had been using Millipore filters to try to take out the extreme grassiness in Sauvignon Blanc," he says. Someone sug- gested to Gnekow "that if we put in a different filter, we could actually take the alcohol out." The idea of a de-alcoholized wine appealed to Lohr. "My Carol (Lohr's late wife) got a headache from a tablespoon of wine. She was part of that 8% to 14% that I've n the mid-1980s, Jerry Lohr and winemaker Barry Gnekow developed the first de-alcoholized wines using reverse osmo- sis. The wines are marketed under heard just get a headache from wine," Lohr says. "Many of our neighbors had health situations and couldn't drink wine, so we thought, 'Maybe here's where we could do something that's good for society.'" They experimented with the process until they came up with the right method. "We make the wine, then we use the reverse osmosis to take out alco- hol and water," he says. "And then we add back unfermented grape juice, because the wine is balanced to begin with, but it comes out quite unbalanced, because the alcohol acts as a buf- fer for the acidity. We then replace the buffer- ing effect of the alcohol with a small quantity of that grape juice. That actually works very nicely. Some of the folks that would like to drink wine, but have chosen not to for whatever reason, don't mind the slight sweetness." —L.D. The American Society for Enology & Viticulture 36th JULY 12-14, 201 Annual Eastern Section Pest A Symposium July 12th 58 Wines & Vines JUne 2011 MANAGEMENT 1 CONFERENCE Sheraton Baltimore North Towson, MD IMPACTS IN THE VINEYARD & WINERY Conference features include a preconference winery tour, technical sessions, awards banquet, and the first annual Student Oenolympics! For registration and info visit: www.asev-es.org