If I’m not having wine with a high quality type dinner, sparkling water feels like the best option. It feels a lot better of a match for a meal that would otherwise call for wine, as compared to still water. That’s just me though.
If your friend is into the “hobby” of wine and wants an alcohol-free hobby, I’d suggest espresso.
In terms of literally an alcohol free beverage to drink with food, I second (or third) the recommendation for Italian sodas.
Try Leitz - Ein Zwei Zero. The sparkling rose and riesling are surprisingly pretty drinkable. I haven’t tried the reds.
It was my wife’s coping wine when she was pregnant.
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Tea is the only non-alcoholic drink I’ve found to be on par with wine for having a wide range of styles, complexity and subtle differences. There’s a huge range to explore.
I’d add coffee.
Coffee, tea, and water are my votes.
Low alcohol? Dry vermouth in tonic with a dash of bitters
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The British have done well with a cuppa (tea) for years…
Fine choice at other times, but tea doesn’t replace wine at the dinner table. You need something with acidity.
I was going to suggest tea, then kombucha, hop water near beer. Whenever I go without hooch for a week or two, those make it pretty easy.
culture pop sodas?
interesting flavors, healthy relative to traditional soda, I serve them on ice and can almost fool myself that I’m drinking a cocktail
If your friend likes amaros, I’d suggest checking out Casamara Club (https://www.casamaraclub.com/) and some of the other non-alcoholic amaros like Ghia. Also, the N/A beer market has exploded and (depending on where they are) there may be a ton of options (in Oregon, Crux makes a few that are pretty nice).
Also, Julia Bainbridge’s book, “Good Drinks” is a pretty nice collection of zero proof cocktail recipes and techniques. Some of them are fairly involved, but if they’re looking for serious alternatives to good cocktails, I’d go that way.
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We just tried Noughty and Surely (rose and white sparkling) since we were curious about how good/bad NA options were. I think we both preferred Noughty just a smidge, but neither can really be a direct comparison to sparkling alcoholic wine. They can be an enjoyable and unique addition to a meal or refreshing summer-time patio/pool crusher, though, if you can just let something simple be simple.
By far the most comprehensive collection of NA drinks I’ve seen is on boisson.nyc. They carry the aforementioned sparkling wines, the very solid Athletic Brewing NA beers, shrubs, syrups, etc. As we get older and have more friends who aren’t drinking alcohol for a number of reasons, we’re trying to make sure we always have some reasonable and fun NA options. I’ve been the person who couldn’t drink for short periods of time, and you don’t realize the pressure regarding alcohol from even the least imposing people and the sadness of options while everyone else is having something fun and exciting until you’ve gone a long stint without.
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The Acid League Proxies series is pretty impressive for what it is, esp the white and orange bottlings. You won’t mistake it for wine, but you’ll get some fruit, spice, tannins.
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I’d second kombucha - I can’t think of anything else that has the acidity and the tannins that come even close to wine. Kombucha is also very easy to brew at home and you can have a lot of fun experimenting.
I’ve also enjoyed the HopTea series from Hoplark. I’ve preferred this over alcohol-free beers which almost always seem to have this sweet malty finish that I find blunts the refreshing effect of full-alcohol beer.