Academics to the Rescue

Regular readers will have noticed that I have challenged the anti-high alcohol league to address their concerns with more than just words. After all, members of the Australian wine industry have addressed this issue in a constructive manner, so why not here in the US.

Alcohol levels in wine are increasingly becoming a hot topic in the wine world. Here in the US there is significant use of reverse osmosis (RO) to reduce alcohol levels in wine. However wineries/winemakers are not keen to come out of the closet about their use of the technology. This makes it difficult to find wines that have undergone RO in order to identify any changes that the process may make to a wine beyond removal of alcohol (and apaprently volatile acidity (VA)).

I was therefore quite pleased to find this post on the West Coast Wine Net forum. The 3 year old post provides tasting notes on a Syrah (made by students at Fresno State University in California) that was made with differing levels of alcohol.

Fruit for the experiment was harvested at 31 Brix (the 0.55 multiplier doesn't account for the 18% alcohol) with a 2-day cold-soak, the fermentation ran for 17 days at 55-60 degreesF. Pressed at 1 Brix, the fermentation proceeded to 0.6% rs afore sticking.

..........the wine was sent to Vinovation for reverse osmosis to reduce the alcohol, from the original 18.0% to 12.8%,and everything in between in 0.1% increments. The four "sweet spots" at above alcohols were selected for aging 6 months in American oak. Each lot completed alcoholic fermentation except the original 18.0%, stopping at <0.2%>. Three of the four reduced alcohol lots finished M-L fermentation. Then given a 5 micron filteration and packaged in a slick redwood box.

The final wines were 13.35%, 13.75%, 14.35%, 15.0%, and 18.0% alcohol. And after the tasting the 17 participants rated the 13.35% the worst wine (14 votes) and the 15% the best (8 votes) followed by the 14.35% with 5 votes. One individual favored the 18% wine!

The comments on the tasting, from several individuals, are interesting and worth reading.

One point to note is a comment by Mike Officer (of Carlisle Winery & Vineyards) that it's virtually impossible to get syrah to taste pruney or raisiny. Our syrah last year was around 31 brix as well. Not a trace of overripe character. I'm not sure why syrah behaves like this but might have something to do with phloems cavitating around 22 brix. It's definitely a physiological issue unique to syrah.

I must admit that I don't recall finding overt prune character in Syrah/Shiraz except for the 2004 Massena The Eleventh Hour Shiraz (Barossa Valley).

Any more examples of approaches that have tested whether or not alcohol levels adversely affect wine appreciation?

The Acid in My Alcohol

Or is it the alcohol in my acid, or the pH of my…. Oh hell, it’s just wine!

I think most folks know that I’m not a fan of the anti-high alcohol league. I’m not completely sure why but for some reason the league stirs in me images of The League of Gentlemen. No, not The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The League of Gentlemen. There is something about this cadre of criers of “nothing above 14.5%” that casts a grim shadow over my world. It’s akin to the foreboding behind the 'Welcome to Royston Vasey. You'll Never Leave!' sign. I picture myself being locked into a little corner of the wine world with people that, well, just don’t sound like a lot of fun. But I digress.

Dan Berger is one of the biggest critics of big wines and Big Wine lovers. I give Berger credit; he knows he’s in the minority. Still I’m not so naïve as to believe that all wines with alcohol above 14.5% are great wines, or even representative of their style or variety. However I’m also not convinced that delicacy, harmony, and balance is found only below the magical number of 14.5% alcohol. But this is the thesis of folks like Dan Berger, Darrell Corti, Randy Dunn and others. It's just unfortunate that they don’t test their hypotheses. But I’m always willing to help, if I can! One of Berger’s most recent discussions on high alcohol wines made a point that I thought worthy of follow-up.

“Look at it this way: The bigger the wine, the more alcohol it typically contains. And the more alcohol a wine has, the less acidity it usually has. High-alcohol wines need more, not less, acid and a lower pH to balance the “sweet” taste of the alcohol. But with high-alcohol wines, we almost always get a higher pH, not a lower one.”

It seemed just a little limiting to me, given the complexity that goes to generate balance, that Berger should focus on the relationship between alcohol and acidity. Does he know something the rest of us don’t? One way to find out is to look at the alcohol and acidity in several wines. It’s a little difficult to do this with a large number of wines simply because alcohol, pH and total acidity (TA) numbers are hard to find for most wines. But I was able to get some data on three wines: Penfolds Grange (Shiraz) from 1955 to 2002; Penfolds St Henri Shiraz from 1993 to 2003; and Carlisle Dry Creek Zinfandel from 1998 to 2005. Grange and St Henri have yet to pass 14.5% alcohol, while the Carlisle Zinfandel has not been below 15.4%.

Graphing alcohol and TA reveals significant positive correlation for both Grange and the Carlisle. St Henri shows a non-significant correlation, although higher alcohol tends to indicate lower TA values. Graphing alcohol and pH reveals a significant negative correlation for Grange; that is the higher the alcohol the more acidity (lower pH), a positive correlation for St Henri (alcohol and pH values both increase) and no significant correlation for the Carlisle although the acidity tends to increase with increasing alcohol.

So if Dan Berger is correct then poor old St Henri, my favorite wine and one of Australia’s most refined, harmonious and balanced Shiraz wines does not fit his thesis. Or could it be that balance (delicacy and harmony) in a wine is just a little more complex than pH and alcohol?

The High Alcohol Debate -continues

Because of all the high octane involved the debate on alcohol levels has flared to an even higher degree than usual. Here in the US it resurfaced when Darrell Corti of Corti Brothers, a retail store specializing “in rare and unique gourmet foods and fine wines" decided that he will no longer sell wines with alcohol above 14.5%. Others have jumped onto the band wagon including Robert Parker Jr.’ biographer, Elin McCoy. Even Ric Einstein (TORB) has posted on the subject.

Now Randy Dunn, of Dunn Vineyards, has added his personal opinion in a letter to the media in the US. Comments that include “The current fad of higher and higher alcohol wines should stop. Most wine drinkers do not really appreciate wines that are 15 -16. +% alcohol.” are clear, rational arguments against high alcohol wines; and if you believe that then there is this bridge I know about……..

The argument that wine should be below 14% in alcohol shows a lack of understanding of the buying public. Most wine is consumed within days of purchase, and only a small percentage of wine drinkers cellar wine for any length of time. More importantly even fewer have the facilities to correctly store wine for years; no, a cupboard in the kitchen is not the correct place. In my experience young wines that are full flavored and ready to drink are preferred to the youthful austerity (excess tannins and acid) of wines meant for aging. Its not surprising that most wine is rich and ripe in style, and its even less surprising for those wines to have higher alcohol.

To appreciate (non-dessert) wine of different alcohol levels all you need is a little commonsense. Earlier this week I drank a 1998 Cape d’Estaing Cabernet Sauvignon (Kangaroo Island, Australia). A beautiful wine that will live for many more years. The alcohol? Below 14%. Last night I opened a 2003 Carlisle Sonoma County Zinfandel that was bursting with flavors and palate appeal but not the 15.8% alcohol.

I wonder if any of the anti-high alcohol league have put their beliefs to the test? Has Dunn taken a group of wine drinkers and let them blind taste wines below 14% and above 15% to see which wines are favored? Darrell Corti’s store claims to “specialize in rare and unique gourmet foods and fine wines”. Does Corti have a program of educating the buying public by showing how the wines he sells match with the foods he sells? The fate of high alcohol wines in such contexts would be a useful contribution, as opposed to trying to force personal preference on the wine buying public.

Voting on Alcohol in Wine

I get lots of email that I just ignore, but the title of a missive from Dave Chambers of the SidewaysWineClub.com caught my attention today. “Michael, are you drinking less high-alcohol wine?” No, Dave I’m not Darrell Corti, I drink a lot of wine that is over 14.5% alcohol.

Who is Darrell Corti? He’s a retailer who has decided that he will no longer sell wines with alcohol above 14.5%. That’s table wine, not dessert wine. Oh, and not Italian Amarone either. Why? Because Amarones are made to be 16.5%. At least that’s Darrell’s excuse, and he’s sticking to it. Any other exceptions Darrell? Only if one of his best customers asks for a Carlisle Zinfandel, wines that are certainly not below 14.5%. Then his company will contact Mike Officer of Carlisle and try to buy the wine. Fortunately for Darrell Mike reminded Corti Bros that they can’t buy his Zinfandels because they are all above 14.5%.

Unfortunately Corti has no real control over what happens.
1) He can't control what alcohol is actually in the wine by what's on the label. The labeling of alcohol content allows 1% variation, over or under, on wines above 14% of alcohol content by volume, and a 1.5% variation, over or under, on wines below 14% alcohol by volume. So a 14.5% wine could be a 15.5% wine, and a 13.9% wine could be a 15.4%er. So just how is Darrell Corti going to determine what is above 14.5%? By what is on the label or in the bottle?
2) He can't control what critics will say about wines. For example Parker loves the Molly Dooker wines of Sarah and Sparky Marquis. These are not alcohol shy wines (the label says 16.5%, but Sparky admits its something like 17.2%) but their wines sold out in 21 days in the USA last year.
3) He can’t control what wine drinkers will buy, except in his own shop.
4) He’s inconsistent. His excuse for selling Amarone over 16.5% is that they are made to be like that. Well, news flash, big fruity, full flavored wines have high alcohol, even without being dried out. And, unless I’m mistaken, much of the wine buying public seems to like wines with plenty of flavor.

Darrell Corti's decision is really only likely to affect those who buy wine from Corti Bros. And as they list less than 30 wines on their web site I doubt that internet sales are a large part of their business. So for the majority of the wine world, I predict, this will be a storm in a tea cup. Changing the wine buying publics' acceptance of high alcohol wines requires more than retailers saying they won't sell them.

Want to express your opinion on what I think is a really silly retailing decision? Head off to Dave Chambers blog, and VOTE! No prizes for guessing that I voted for the last choice.