Wednesday, January 16 2008
Alcohol By Volume: Just How Loud is Your Wine?
Molotov Cocktail - AP Photo
In the last couple of decades I've heard nearly every concern or complaint about wines that consumers have fermented at home. I've heard some doozies, along with some that are just puzzling.
I should note that nowadays I'm actually responsible for responding to our network of retailers around the world and providing expertise and such to our sales and marketing department, so I don't get much chance to talk directly to home winemakers. The whole idea is for folks to work with their local retailer, who (if things have gone well) has benefited from my training and has my reference materials on-hand. Not only does the customer get a good answer, they get a good fast answer, which is much better.
(Consumer inquiries that do make it to Winexpert are usually handled by my right hand women, Linda and Joanne. They do a pretty darn fabulous job, and without them I'd probably just hide at home under the covers–there just wouldn't be enough hours in the day!)
But the query that I was pondering today is the puzzler: 'My wine doesn't have enough alcohol', or even odder, 'My wine doesn't have any alcohol'. Sometimes folks will open the first bottle of wine they've made from a kit, drink it, and think it's lacking something. Since the wine is typically fairly smooth (with the exception of our premium and super-premium kits we deliberately keep the acids and tannins in gentle balance, so the wine can be consumed fairly young) and many people equate intensity of flavour or character with 'strong' drink like whisky, they assume that a low level of alcohol is the culprit.
Some of this perception also stems from the fact that only a fraction of our consumers age their wine as long as they should before drinking it. Wineries typically don't release even their lightest, most heavily processed wines for a full year after they're fermented. If you drink a kit wine–or any wine–that's only a few months old, it will have some 'green' flavours and smells snuffing out the aromas and bouquet. A little patience and poof! They're all there for the sniffing and slurping.
The problem seems to be stemming from the high levels of alcohol in current commercial wines. When I began learning about wine, the average alcohol content I saw for whites on the shelves of my local bottle shop ran from 9% (light German whites) to 11-11.5% (dry white table wine) and 12-12.5% (dry red table wine). Rare and intimidating California reds that had ABV ratings of 13-14% were sold as 'Blockbuster' reds, and anything above that was a dessert wine. Sure, there were things like Amarone out there, but not in my price range, and the killer Zins of 70's California nostalgia, with their 16% alcohol levels were long gone, a victim of their own uncouth heat and imbalance.
Today? The Germans seem to have retained a grain of sense, but even the finest producers around the world, from California cults to first-growth Bordeaux, are making dopey hot wines that mug the palate and crush the tastebuds, never mind the production wineries that are run by corporations to pander to the lowest common denominator of taste. Alcohol levels in reds start at 13.5% and some people are selling what is ostensibly table wine at 16.5% ABV. Sadly, even then these numbers can be fudged because they don't have to accurately report the alcohol level on the bottle (naughty!), sometimes leaving a point or two out.
Their excuse is that they're leaving the grapes to hang longer on the vine to develop 'optimum organoleptic ripeness'. Meh, this might wash for some wineries shooting for jam-and-vodka wines to spoof the palate of influential critics, but the simple fact is that alcohol tastes sweet. Most people think it tastes like burning, but the trigeminal perception of pain from alcohol concentration doesn't kick in until around 19% alcohol. Up to that, alcohol is solution tastes very similar to sugar in solution. Most people respond positively to sweet tastes, so winemakers use this like fast-food joints use grease and salt: to woo the palate.
Now Winexpert kit wines have alcohol contents appropriate to the sensibilities of our consumers: light, off-dry German whites are around 10.5%, other whites run from 11.5% to 13% for the biggest ones, and reds run from 12 to 13.5%. There are a few of exceptions: our Luna Bianca is 13.5-14% and our Luna Rossa is 14.5 to 15.5%. Both of these kits are designed to mimic big California wines (the ones I'm railing against) and they do a pretty good job. The other exception is our Italian Amarone, which is nearly 16%, like its continental namesake. But for the most part our ABV numbers are about where the commercial numbers were 10 or 15 years ago.
Why? Because I like wine. Not half a glass, and not even one glass. I think a couple should be able to split a bottle of wine over dinner without crashing face-first into the soup. I think you should be able to have a glass with lunch and still go back to work in the afternoon. I think the varietal character of the wine should show through, not get glazed over by alcohol. I think you should enjoy wine for flavour, aroma and bouquet–not for stupefaction.
And, it turns out I'm not alone: a number of winemakers are saying that they'll start picking earlier this year, to keep sugar (and thus alcohol) levels in their place. Josh Jensen fired the warning shot, and it looks like it might just be a call to arms. Nice to see some people keeping the faith.
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