Rising alcohol levels in wine (long article).

Our good friend Jamie Goode (!) has just written an interesting piece on his blog. Lots of discussion here I`d say?

http://www.wineanorak.com/alcohollevelsrising.htm

[Robin Garr]

Our good friend Jamie Goode (!) has just written an interesting piece on his blog. Lots of discussion here I`d say?

http://www.wineanorak.com/alcohollevelsrising.htm

Good, solid wine science, as we'd expect from Jamie. Thanks for the link. I've been ranting on this subject, albeit in less scientific detail, since the turn of the millennium ... touched on several similar points in this 2006 article:

Global warming in your glass

Jamie Goode, Robin Garr, Dan Berger, etc, etc. How many voices do we need!

Jamie Goode, Robin Garr, Dan Berger, etc, etc. How many voices do we need!

Don't forget Darrell Corti of Corti Bros., the Sacramento-area specialty foods dealer (and himself something of an institution, mentioned for decades in California wine books, tapped internationally as a wine judge) choosing not to stock wines above a certain alcohol limit. Characterised by RP as "apallingly stupid, frigheningly arbitrary, and like some part of a police state's mentality to me" (all retailers select inventories on some criteria, doesn't he know that?). Prompting Squires to write publicly that he never heard of Corti despite buying Calif wine since 1980, being "serious collector for over 20 years," touring the area often, knowing winemakers and writing articles on wine. Prompting in turn someone else (not necessarily a reader of Squires) to write publicly "If Mark Squires has never heard of Darrell Corti that says more about Mark Squires and Robert Parker's hiring policies than it does about Darrell Corti."

[Robin Garr]

"If Mark Squires has never heard of Darrell Corti that says more about Mark Squires and Robert Parker's hiring policies than it does about Darrell Corti."

Except for the part about the hiring policies, which I wasn't swift enough to think of, that would have been me who said that. Or words to that effect.

Well if this post of mine makes less sence than usual - it's because the wine I've been enjoying tonight is 14.5%

Rawnsley Estate - Shiraz Viognier - South Australia (2006)

This is about the strongest wine I've drunk - and to me at this strength it's about the limit.

In fact I prefer wines at 13 to 13.5%.

However this wine seems to have the depth and structure and fruitiness be able to support this strength of alcohol.

Cheers, Dave C.

As always, Jamie Goode's article is thought provoking. I have no doubt that he is right in thinking that the best way to go is to improve techniques in the vineyard but I feel more reserved that he about the prospects of more trickery with yeasts. However, I can understand that a lot of commercially minded estates find that it represents a lot less hassle and maybe cost to intervene heavily at the wine-making stage rather than to invest years of labour in transforming the vineyard.

The example of Gérard Gauby, whom I have mentioned before, is instructive. His Roussillon naturally produces big, generous, high alcohol wine and in the 90s his were some of the best in that style. Since the beginning of the present decade, however, he has questioned his old style and has sought to make his wines more elegant and digestible mainly by work in the vineyards. The main thrust of this is to encourage the vines' roots to dig deeper and so to permit phenolic maturity at an earlier stage before sugar maturity becomes exaggerated. I have done a Google search to see if there is more information on precisely how he achieves this result but the results have been meagre. Next time he comes to Belgium, I will try to get more precise information.

There is no doubt about the results, however. The wines have indeed become much more focused, elegant, mineral and, indeed, gluggable. His whites are extraordinarily crisp and mineral for such a warm climate but still manage to exude Mediterranean aromatics. His basic red cuvée, les Calcinaires, is beautifully fresh and a real favourite of mine which I do not hesitate to serve when a more conventional Roussillon or, say, Côtes du Rhône, much as I love them, is too heavy and alcoholic to be appropriate.

Gauby is not without his detractors, of course. When I mentioned him to his neighbour, Hervé Bizeul (who produces a 100% Grenache, Petite Sibérie, retailing at 199 EUR), he retorted "if you want to make a Roussillon wine stripped of its typical generosity, then harvest like Gauby on 15th August." And I have met quite a few people who prefer Gauby's old style. I am able to enjoy both, but there is no doubt that open a lot more bottles of the new more elegant style.

Nicely written and informative article.

I have been a consistent voice for rational alcohol levels, and pointed this out quite some time ago with my Other selection in a WLDG poll of disturbing winemaking trends.

Just to point out how outrageous the problem can be, the 2005 Melville Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir has 15.4% ABV. This is Pinot Noir, folks. This bottle showed up as a (non-winery) club selection recently; I dropped out after receiving it.

-- Clark

Bump up.

[Robin Garr]

Bump up.

Bob, please don't do that. Bumping a topic without a substantive addition to the discussion isn't a good thing. If people want to carry on a conversation, they will, and if they don't, then it's appropriate for it to drop down the list.

OK, I saw Jamie Goode was here and thought he might want to comment.
Perhaps you could have sent me a PM instead of ripping into me here?

Bob, I can't help noticing that although you posted the link and invited discussion, and bumped it, you've not said anything yourself -- what's your take?

I'd add that in a competition where many wines are tasted and each wine gets only a little time, then the big statement wines tend to get noticed, and high alcohol makes a statement.

Wines which win competitions , get awards etc, tend to influence others.

Peter, I thought that forumites might like to see this article as not many regularily visit "wineanorak".
Myself, I enjoy all the chatter regarding high alcohol but am rather perplexed sometimes. Some Oz wines have a very good fruit balance even though the alcohol % is quite high. I recently tasted a gewurztraminer from Argentina that was close to 15%!! The alcohol did not deter me from enjoying the wine once it had opened up after a couple of days!! I have to agree with your comment about wines tasted at a large session. Those big wines tend to show up sometimes!
I do not have a scientific background so find it confusing at times. the responses here have helped somewhat. Thanks to all.

Re : competitions –

I think that Peter has raised an interesting point here.

21st century culture seems to demand winners and losers, whatever the field. So I fear that wine competitions are here to stay. Nevertheless the effect is perverse. Peter is right in saying that competitions tend to reward spectacular high alcohol wines and this leads the consumer in that direction rather than towards more durably satisfying and digestible wines.

Although I am aware of the often superficial nature of the attraction of spectacular wine, I from time to time fall into the trap of buying such a wine after a sip and spit tasting and of subsequently finding myself unable to finish the bottles at dinner time.

Of course not all spectacular high alcohol wine is unbalanced and indigestible, but I doubt whether competitions are more conducive than sip and spit commercial tastings to easy identification of the better examples.

I am equally allergic to competitions in any other artistic field where performance is not measurable and judgements are therefore subjective, such as music, art and dressage (for horses).

Thanks, Bob, for raising this one. It's an important issue for a number of reasons. First, there's the effect of alcohol on the perception of other elements of the wine. Then there's the more fundamental style issue.

Some winemakers think that the only alternative to high alcohol wines from warm climates is to compromise on flavour. If you pick earlier, they say, the result is thin, less enticing wines. But others say to me that it would be a good idea simply to pick earlier, as soon as flavour ripeness is reached, rather than waiting longer and getting less fresh, rather dead fruit wines.

If I were making wines in warm climates, then I'd try my very best to work in the vineyard in such a way that I could pick the grapes with lower sugar levels, yet still achieve physiological ripeness. I'd be looking to get my various blocks as homogeneous as possible. And failing this, I'd be tempted to play with RO in the winery as a sort of last resort, simply because high alcohol levels take so much away from the wine.