What is happening to wine alcohol levels ?
Australia seems to be leading the way, but it is happening elsewhere too, alcohol levels are rising. New reds hitting Australian shelves include wines at 16% !
What is happening ? Grapes being left longer on the vine ? Why are winemakers chasing such high alcohols. Is it because of better viticulture and winemaking that they can afford to seek better physiological ripeness without losing acidity ?
Even wine that have been made to recipes for decades are showing higher alcohols. For instance I saw a Penfolds Bin 707 cabernet from 1985 yesterday and the labels said only 11.5% - you'd never see a current vintage near this level. Mind you early 80s was a period where warm climate winemakers were going to the other extreme. I'd just arrived in Australia from New Zealand and was amazed that Australian winemakers were deliberately picking their grapes (too) early in order to retain acids and what they saw as cool climate finesse. Coming from a cool climate I was used to winemakers striving for ripeness.
Alcohol levels used to be a good indicator of quality. Too low and that indicated a poor vintage, under-ripe grapes, or diluted. For example, most cask wine features quite low alcohol due to irrigated (ie diluted) fruit. I'm not sure if cask wine has also dramatically increased in alcohol recently.
This trend to high alcohols seems to cut across cool climate areas like New Zealand and hot like McLaren Vale in 2003.
Is it simply because the market prefers high alcohol reds ? Are winemakers responding to wine writers and buyers ?
posted by Byron Sharp @ 1:02 PM
2 Comments:
There was recently a conference in Napa sponsored by the Grape Growers about 'hang time' as both a viticulture and consumer issue. Growers don't like being forced to let grapes overripen on the vine- it increases rish, and reduces yields as the grapes dry out. There were lots of comments on an email listing I read. At the end it seems like there are 3 groups of consumers. Some like these wines, possibly because they have high thresholds for tannins; others, sometimes called supertasters are very sensitive to tannins and hate these wines; the middle group tends not to like the wines, but understands the style and sometimes chooses them for a change or with certain foods.
There is no doubt about the increase in these styles of wines, probably driven by Robert Parker and others, who seem to like them. They may also appeal to consumers weaned on soft drinks and salty chips.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Post a Comment
<< Home