Lussory Premium, Pierre Chavin Organic & Vegan Sampler (6 × 750 mL)

Maison Chavin works out of Béziers, in the Languedoc, and makes alcohol-free wine at a scale almost nobody else does — nine separate ranges rather than one, sold in more than sixty countries.

The division that matters to anyone buying runs underneath the names. Some ranges are made as wine and have the alcohol taken back out at the end. Others are never fermented at all, built instead from grape juice, infusions of oak and grape seed, and long maceration, so there is no alcohol to remove. Pierre Zéro, the flagship and the oldest of them, is the first kind. ÔPIA and Le Petit Étoilé are the second.

That split is also where the sulfites fall. Le Petit Étoilé is made without preservatives or sulfites and was built for French bistros; the Pierre Zéro bottles declare sulfites on the label. Two answers to two different questions, from one house.

The grapes are the French standards — Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscat, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot — and the bottles come full-size and in smaller formats for one.

Lussory is made in Spain, and the back label carries Dismark Products of Santiago de Compostela — the far northwest, where the Atlantic weather comes in. The fruit is from somewhere else entirely. It comes off La Mancha, the wide, high plateau south of Madrid, and both ranges are built from it: Airen and Tempranillo, Merlot and Chardonnay, all grown a long way from the corner of Spain the brand comes from.

The wine is made conventionally and matured for twelve months before anything is removed. The alcohol then comes off by vacuum distillation, under reduced pressure and at temperatures low enough that the aromatics are not driven off with it. Taking it out at the end rather than never letting it in is what leaves the reds their grip and the whites their fruit.

Two ranges sit under the name. The Premium bottles run through Merlot, Tempranillo, Airen and Chardonnay to a Rosé, a sparkling Brut, and the 24K Gold. The Organic range is the smaller of the two: a Merlot, a Chardonnay and a Brut of its own.