WITH THE RECENT boom in zero-proof cocktails and spirits, it’s easier than ever to enjoy a drink without the buzz. But despite the dizzying array of options, my experience with alcohol-free wines has been less than stellar. So it was with no small amount of suspicion that I tried my first glass of French Bloom — a guilt-free “bubbly” made from naturally dealcoholized chardonnay and pinot noir. Much to my surprise, the resulting cuvées pack a refreshingly effervescent punch, delivering all of the sensory pleasure of a nice bottle of Champagne. Available in both a blanc and a rosé, the beautifully packaged sparkling wines boast a complicated flavor profile derived from distinctive French grapes and are organic, vegan-certified, low in calories, and (unlike Champagne) contain no added sugar or sulfites.

The brand came to be in 2019, when longtime friends Maggie Frerejean-Taittinger, the director of the Michelin Guide, and Constance Jablonski, a model, met up in Paris and realized that no one offered festive nonalcoholic beverages at social gatherings. The two then spent years doing research and working with winemakers to create a premium product with the same finesse and level of nuance as a high-end bottle of bubbly.

“Our goal was really to create something that was accessible but special,” says Jablonski. “We wanted to stay within the wine world, but the idea was to have something really pleasant that literally everyone could enjoy. It’s no longer acceptable in Michelin-starred restaurants, in luxury hotels, or at formal events not to have something on offer that’s at that same premium level as the wine and Champagne being served to everybody else in the room.”

My problem with many nonalcoholic spirits is similar to my feelings about vegan foods that try to imitate the taste of meat — it’s just never going to be the same, and the harder you try to fake it, the weirder it gets. It was a pleasure, then, to find that Frerejean-Taittinger and Jablonski are more concerned with replicating the experience of drinking Champagne and less with the actual taste of it. French Bloom presents as something wine-adjacent and sparkly but with its own unique flavor. “I always say the dream would be that, in the future, we call all of these alternative drinks ‘a bloom,’” Jablonski confesses. “It would be its own thing, not simply a copy of something. It’s just a bloom.”

According to Frerejean-Taittinger, French Bloom’s popularity speaks not only to the product, but also to the changing attitudes of young people, who often choose not to drink for health reasons, and who are more cognizant of showing up to an event with a bottle that everyone can enjoy. “People are waking up to the notion that individuals who are choosing not to drink alcohol — for whatever reason — don’t necessarily want to have something that’s less special or that’s an afterthought. They want to feel like they’re partaking in a beautiful meal or a celebration, just as the person in front of them having a glass of Champagne or fine wine would be. We just want to provide them with something that feels equal to the occasion.”