Making Fre: Fre wines are the product of a breakthrough dealcoholization process called the spinning cone column.

Developed in Australia, the spinning cone facilitates a two-step procedure for the separation and collection of a wine's fragile aroma and flavor essences and the subsequent removal of its alcohol.

Wine is fed into the top of the spinning cone column (a vertical cylinder roughly 40" in diameter and 13' in height) and flows down over a series of alternating stationary and rotary metal cones. Centrifugal force transforms the wine into a thin liquid film, which is contacted by ascending nitrogen gas fed into the bottom of the cone.

The nitrogen acts as a carrier to extract the volatilized aroma and flavor compounds from the wine. These essences are then condensed, separated and safeguarded while the liquid is run through the cone again, at slightly higher temperatures, to remove the alcohol. Then they are reintroduced to the dealcoholized wine and blended with unfermented varietal grape juice to create a beverage with less than 0.3% alcohol by volume.

The spinning cone process is superior to other alcohol-removal systems, such as steam distillation and reverse osmosis (also known as membrane filtration) for two reasons. First, it protects the delicate aroma and flavor essences by removing them, at low temperatures, prior to alcohol removal. Both steam distillation and reverse osmosis are single-stage systems in which wine aromas and flavors are degraded through exposure to either the heat or high pressures employed to remove the alcohol. Second, the spinning cone, unlike reverse osmosis, does not concentrate the residual base liquid to the extent that it must be re-diluted with water.