Review: Oddbird Low Intervention Organic White No. 1

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THIS NON ALCOHOLIC WHITE WINE FROM SWEDISH COMPANY ODDBIRD IS THE FIRST OF IT’S KIND, AND YOU WILL LOVE IT

A bottle of Oddbird nonalcoholic white wine sits on a wooden platter. A glass of white wine is beside it. In the background, there is a stack of books, a bird ornament and some feathery decor.

This review has been a very long time in coming and this wine has also come a very long way. It was a sold out premiere, when Oddbird Low Intervention non alcoholic wines came to Canada in late-2021 and it only took six long months for us to get our hands on a fresh bottle shipped all the way from Calgary! It was well worth the wait for this delectable non alcoholic white wine that will leave you gasping at the new heights that a dealcoholized wine can go.

Oddbird is a Swedish company producing their wines across the EU. Their Blanc de Blanc non alcoholic sparkling wine produced in France is best in class when it comes to quality and taste. Their new Low Intervention Organic White is produced in Italy using minimal intervention as a blend of Garganega and Vespaiola grape varietals. This has never have been tried before in a non alcoholic product, and to our knowledge it’s the first of its kind. This blend definitely pushes the upward boundaries of innovation and quality-focused dealcoholization. It is truly a wine-lovers non alcoholic wine.

You may recognize Garganega under another name, as it's often labelled as Soave. It’s Italy’s 6th highest produced grape varietal. Vespaiola is less common, mainly used to make dessert wine. Despite that, there is only 4g of sugar per serving in the Organic White, which is on the lower side of many non alcoholic wines.

The Garganega and Vespaiolo in this bottle are 100% organic and have been grown in volcanic soil in Veneto, fermented spontaneously and then hand harvested. If you stop and think about that for a moment, you can see how incredible that is considering how industrial the production of low-end grocery store non alcoholic wine is. The TLC that has gone into this wine is reason enough to love it.

Opening the bottle, you immediately discover a typical Garganega aroma of soft lemon curd and minerals. The nose is light and refreshing and piques your interest immediately as a sophisticated wine should.

The palette is light and refreshing. On the first taste, when the wine was crisp from the fridge, there was a nice balance of tart lemon, minerality and stone fruit. Some aromatics are present and they add a very soft floral honey note. As the wine mellowed on the second round, a nuttier flavour comes through delightfully rounding out the tartness of the citrus.

As with a lot of white wines, both alcoholic and non alcoholic, there is very little length. What stays behind is a slightly sweet note of honey at the back of the palette.

Overall, this is not a dry wine. It’s on the sweeter side, but not cloyingly sweet like a badly produced grape juice. It’s an elegant sweetness that screams for some butternut squash risotto, oysters or a selection of hard, ripe cheeses.

The price point is in the neighbourhood of $25 a bottle, through various non alcoholic merchants across Canada, which makes this a splurge for a still wine.

BUYING THIS BOTTLE:

As of publication, the only place that has Oddbird Low Intervention White still in stock is SofterDrink.ca (direct link here). It will be restocked later this fall at DryVariety.com.

Cheers friends!