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Couple Order ‘Non-Alcoholic’ Wine at Restaurant in Europe—Doesn’t Go Well
A Reddit post has gone viral after a couple who specifically requested non-alcoholic wine were inadvertently served alcohol during a dinner out.
Shared by user u/trailofturds in the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit, the post received 27,000 upvotes since it was shared on July 7.
A caption accompanying the post reads: “Got served this wine at a nice restaurant after asking specifically for non-alcoholic wine. They assumed the ‘Zero’ on the label referred to alcohol content; turns out it’s for sulphur.”
The post shows an image of the front of the bottle of wine, which features a “zero” written at the top of the label. A second image shows the back label, which indicates the wine’s alcohol percentage count.
This incident comes amid a booming non-alcoholic wine industry. The global non-alcoholic wine market was valued at $2.26 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $3.78 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.9 percent, according to a report by Grandview Research, a market research firm headquartered in San Francisco.
The report said the demand for non-alcoholic wine was driven by a rise in the number of consumers looking at alcohol alternatives over Dry January, a wider availability of non-alcoholic drinks in the market as well as a surge in sales in both new and established brands into the industry.
North America accounted for a 49.58 percent revenue share in 2023, and the U.S. market alone is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.4 percent through 2030, the report said.
‘It Could Have Serious Consequences’
According to the poster, the incident took place in Germany at a restaurant staffed entirely by locals. While language might appear to be a potential barrier, the Redditor later clarified: “It’s a German restaurant serving German cuisine and an all-German staff so not being able to read German definitely wasn’t the issue lol.”
The confusion may have stemmed from a misleading label on the bottle. The word “zero” may have led the waiter to believe it indicated zero alcohol content—when in fact it referred to zero sulphur, a descriptor for wines free of added sulphites, not alcohol-free.
In a later comment, the user explained: “It happened in Germany and the waiter at first wasn’t sure if they do have any non-alcoholic wine, so she went back to check and said they do, then brought us two glasses of this.”
The couple only realized the mistake partway through their drinks. “Started getting light-headed halfway through my glass,” the diner said in the title of the post, but they didn’t escalate the situation. “We didn’t make a big deal out of it since we were only taking a break from alcohol, but we told them it could have serious consequences if they aren’t more careful.”
Fortunately, the couple had no lasting harm. “My wife and I were just taking a break from drinking for no real reason, so we let it go without making a scene,” the poster said.
But they stressed that this could have been catastrophic for someone in recovery or expecting a child: “We did emphasize to them how big a f*** up it could have been if they served it to a pregnant woman or someone in recovery, and they were just very lucky they happened to serve people who drink but just happened not be, on that day. I wonder what the odds of that are tbh [to be honest].”
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.

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