Oddbird - alcohol free - Spumante
Photo: Oliver Schwarzwald
Spumante - Baby!
OK, I'm going to confess to being a wine dummy. Up to now I could say this about Spumante: I know it, it's the sweet swill from the 80s. Hands off!
As a teenager, it had to be Asti Spumante. Not a particularly tasty drink, rather the opposite. But it went down so harmlessly sweet, without offering any resistance. The next day, anything but harmless... we all know it, and that's why we're here. Hello!
Anyway, Spumante only stuck in my memory as a sticky sweet fizzy wine, and I have avoided it all these years. Prosecco came later and sounded cooler somehow. I now know that spumante is just sparkling wine with more perlage than prosecco frizzante. And whether it's sweet or dry, tasty or not, has absolutely nothing to do with the name Spumante. Loaded with prejudices, I was also really sceptical about what to expect from the Oddbird Spumante. The deciding factor was the extremely appealing bottle design. By the way, I really like the whole Oddbird brand identity. Thumbs up!
The manufacturer states the following:
"Oddbird Spumante is made from 100% Glera from the Italian province of Treviso in the Veneto region, commonly known as the Prosecco region.
The wine is aged for 12 months in steel tanks and then gently dealcoholised.
This preserves all the wine's natural flavours and aromas."
This is also correct as far as it goes. The perlage is nice and strong. Notes of pear, green apple and elderflower are clearly perceptible. A nice acid play of citrus fruits and gooseberry balance the non-alcoholic Spumante. What I like is the pleasant minerality and the tart finish, with hints of grapefruit. The honeydew melon described by the producer is somewhat lacking, but that is no drama. A really great sparkling wine that beats all the spumantes I have drunk in my life. And it's Hangover Free! Nice!
By the way, all those expecting a full and fat spumante, please remember that alcohol is missing as an important solvent for a multitude of flavours. I have adjusted to this in the meantime. And have stopped directly comparing non-alcoholic wines with alcoholic wines. That's why I advocate giving non-alcoholic wines their own category. They are not wines in the conventional sense. But that is also an advantage. With non-alcoholic products, there is no dogma for me, no Johnson and other "experts" with self-appointed interpretive authority. Here you can mix, refine, infuse, whatever tastes good is allowed! I liked the Spumante very much with Mondadino Bitter (in the next review).
Not only the product but also the story behind Odd-Bird is great. The website reads the following:
"Moa Gürbüzer is a former family therapist and social worker with over 2 decades of experience. She worked mainly with alcohol-related family problems and saw first-hand the harmful effects of alcohol on our society. She was amazed at how many of these problems were recurring and realised that structural change was needed. She quit her job and founded Oddbird in 2013. Her vision was to challenge and change society's alcohol norms by making world-class wines and ridding them of alcohol. Today Oddbird is the largest producer of alcohol-free wines in Scandinavia."
That sounds understandable, and hats off to the entrepreneurial courage to have believed in alcohol-free products early on. For me, it took a little longer to come to a similar conviction. But it's still only the beginning.