French Bloom Le Rosé – Alcohol-Free Sparkling – 75cl
The rosé is the more charming of the two French Bloom bottles, and the one I'd pour for a table that isn't drinking. Same starting point as Le Blanc — organic French Chardonnay, made as wine, then gently dealcoholised to 0.0% — with organic grape juice bringing colour and a little flesh to it.
Maggie Frerejean-Taittinger and Constance Jablonski founded the house in 2019 after concluding that nobody was making a non-alcoholic drink an adult would actually want at dinner. CNN has since called this the best non-alcoholic sparkling going, and the bottle looks like it belongs on the table rather than beside it.
What's in the glass is a floral bouquet first — rose petal, unmistakably — then freshly picked red fruit and dry white peach. It runs fleshy and generous in the middle and finishes vivid and tangy, and crucially it isn't sweet in the way most non-alcoholic fizz is. What sweetness there is comes from grape rather than added sugar. Nineteen calories per hundred millilitres, certified organic, vegan, no preservatives.
This is the bottle for a pregnant guest, a dry January, a designated driver, or anyone who simply doesn't fancy it tonight and would rather not be handed a glass of orange juice.
How to Serve
Very cold, 4–6°C. The brand suggests a flute; I'd use a wine glass, or a tumbler over ice with a slice of strawberry if the afternoon is warm enough. It keeps for a couple of days under a stopper.
Where to Drink It
The Wolseley for a long lunch. Scott's, where the room does half the work. Bentley's, at the oyster bar.
Food Pairings
Charcuterie and melon, or a bowl of strawberries with black pepper. It's also very good with anything fried and salty — tempura, croquetas, a plate of chips.
