Under the influence

Have recent wine tastings left you feeling unusually drowsy, or even a tad tipsy? Alcohol levels in wine are reaching record levels, says Tom Bruce-Gardyne, and the chancellor’s tax antennae are starting to twitch

As anyone who has been in the drinks business for decades will tell you, it is not just the world’s climate that has been edging upwards by degrees. According to the California Grape Crush Report, the average alcoholic strength of wine in the region rose from 12.5% in 1971 to 14.8% in 2001.

Napa Valley is famed for its Cabernet Sauvignon, a variety “not really suited for quaffing as a young wine” according to Paul Draper, winemaker at Ridge Vineyards. “However, if you overripen the grapes, the intensity of fruit is such that it covers the tannins and, given that the acidity drops as the grapes ripen, you have a wine that is rich, fruity and approachable when young. Add excessive oak and you have the popular Napa Valley Cabernet style of today.” Apparently, the average strength of Napa Cabernets has risen from 13% to just over 15% in the last 30 years. When I did my WSET Diploma, 15% and above was considered wholly the domain of fortified wine. Clearly, my tutor hadn’t heard of California’s so-called “monster Zins”, which can hit 17% or more in a good year.  Wine’s increasing strength is not just an issue for the Sunshine State. It has been happening everywhere, from Bordeaux to the Barossa Valley, with levels of alcohol up 2% or 3% in a generation.

Delaying the inevitable
Of course every vintage varies. “These things oscillate a bit,” says Philip Goodband, consultant MW at Constellation Wines. “It‘s not a straight line, but there has definitely been an upward trend, and this has been due to a whole lot of different things.” Global warming must have had an effect, though how much is unclear. Far more important has been the move to delay the harvest and pick ever later. “In general terms, as the Americans beautifully put it, the hang time has been extended,” says Goodband. Californian growers traditionally harvested when the grapes reached a certain sweetness. Then someone noticed how French wine could taste almost as ripe even though sugar levels were considerably lower. Hang times were maximised, and ripeness became the new religion.

At the same time, people’s knowledge of the ripening process grew dramatically. Suddenly “canopy management” became a buzz-word in the vineyard as growers learned when to strip away leaves to expose the bunches to more sunlight – an effect already enhanced by new trellising systems. Producers began looking for not just sugar ripeness, but for physiological ripeness to achieve the softest-possible tannins and banish the slightest whiff of anything leafy or green. All this pushed the harvest date back even further. And, once crushed, the juice could be injected with specially cultivated yeasts that would add another degree of alcohol to the wine.

For wines that are unpalatably strong a proportion can be taken out, have its alcohol removed through reverse osmosis or the spinning-cone technique, and be added back to lower the overall strength. For Californians, a much simpler and more popular method is to carefully dilute the wine with water. Either way, it allows US winemakers to play God in a way their European counterparts can only dream of.

In the New World there are fewer natural constraints at harvest time, as Christian Lopez of Chilean producer Concha y Toro admits. “We have such a naturally conducive environment to produce grapes, there are no issues to pick early – because of the rain, for example – as in the northern hemisphere.” Nor are there any UK tax incentives to rein in alcohol as there are for spirits. By dropping to 37.5% ABV, Gordon’s Gin currently saves 70p a bottle in tax, whereas an Aussie Shiraz at 15% ABV pays the same duty as a German Riesling at almost half the strength.

Where it all began

The big-volume regions of the New World are bound to produce bigger wines than much of Europe. The climate in Australia’s Riverlands or California’s Central Valley is more like Tunisia than Bordeaux. And in Oz, given the tradition for fortified wine, the local market may well have expected the table version to be suitably robust. In the early 1950s Max Schubert began making a new style of red at Penfolds called Grange. “That’s where it really began,” says Paul Schaafsma, regional director for Europe at McGuigan Simeon Wines. “Initially it wasn’t well received, but within 20 to 30 years, it became an icon and I think people have used that as a benchmark for top Australian wine.”

Grange won a fistful of medals, which brings us to the role of the wine pundits. The advent of Robert Parker with his 100-point scale and the influence of the Wine Spectator has played no small part in raising alcohol levels in wine. Californian and Aussie winemakers seeking those coveted 90-plus scores have learned precisely which of Parker’s buttons to press. And it seems that restraint isn’t one of them. “There’s no doubt that the plush, deeply coloured, high-alcohol monsters win, or were winning, the medals and getting the high points,” says Goodband. 

Such red wines appeal to our desire for instant gratification and, with their plump tannins and easy drinkability, need no ageing. As for the whites, raising the alcohol has meant a more generous mouthfeel and, therefore, a greater perception of sweetness. As reported in the drinks business (March 2006), there is little evidence that people’s tastes in wine have necessarily moved from sweet to dry, even if they have been taught to request the latter for fear of sounding hopelessly naff.

Fruit bombs
Sam Harrop MW used to be a winemaker for Marks & Spencer and now consults in Portugal, the Loire and southern France, where he owns a vineyard in Roussillon. He is also co-chairman of this year’s International Wine Challenge and recognises the need to reward not just the big and the buxom. Last year’s Best Australian Shiraz from Yaldara Farms was a whopping 14.9% ABV. Shaafsma of McGuigan Simeon was obviously pleased that one of his company’s wines won, though personally he would like to see alcohol levels come down in Australia. “It has been taken to the extreme. It’s not creating a product with any more appeal; in fact, in some cases, it has less appeal, especially at the price points of the ‘drink-now’ wines. Particularly for summer wines, it’s just not pleasant.” As for how you counter the instant appeal of the fruit bomb, “you have to have huge faith in your judges,” says Harrop. “The big change this year is that the judges will be briefed to look in much more detail at wines that aren’t show wines, and to give more elegant wines a second chance.” 

When the New World invasion took off, UK consumer expectations began to shift towards more fruit and alcohol. Suddenly Beaujolais and Bardolino appeared awfully thin and weedy compared to those sumptuous, big-busted delights from Down Under. Perhaps, in their darkest moments, the French suspected it was all some evil conspiracy on the part of the English-speaking world; by raising the bar to 13.5% and above, the Australians were effectively pushing France off the pitch in the UK. “It is much more difficult for France to get these bigger, riper wines on a consistent basis,” Goodband concedes. “However, I do think they’ve learned a lot about modern viticulture and new strains of yeast, and that’s why we are seeing a number of New World- style wines from France, Italy and Spain. There was a period when they were suffering, but now I think it has come a bit more back into balance.”

Loss of identity
European winemakers keen to supply the UK are bound to copy the crowd-pleasing Australian varietals, but Harrop believes they are often missing the point. “They are picking on texture as opposed to flavour to get those jammy, homogenised, ill-defined characteristics that the market seems to like.” For him this lack of definition is the most depressing aspect of rising alcohol levels. Mainstream wines are converging in the centre, leaving their provenance behind. “You can only have terroir and typicity in a wine region at optimum ripeness. As soon as you move past that cusp into jammy, confected flavours, you lose all flavour identity. It just becomes another overripe warm-climate wine. If you pick at optimum ripeness, you are generally going to pick at lower alcohols and you’re going to have more diversity of wine styles,” says Harrop.

Taking the wines of the Rhône and its principal grape Grenache as an example, Harrop believes that by trying to match Australian producers in strength and yield, the alcohol becomes detached. He says the region’s wines have definitely improved in the last 10 years. “What they need to do now is move one step further and actually pick at lower yields to get a better integration of the alcohol and more extract to compete with the New World.” This sounds like good advice, except that reducing yields has a direct impact on the bottom line. If picking less fruit pushed prices over £5 a bottle, the Rhône would haemorrhage sales to its rivals, while reducing its strength might reduce its appeal.

The word on the street
What the consumer really thinks about all this is hard to judge. Anecdotal evidence suggests some people do pick up bottles, scan the labels for their alcohol content and then buy the one with the greatest kick. For some reason, many of these stories seem to originate in Glasgow. Given the absence of much else to go on beyond a back label that says words to the effect of “this is a fun-loving, easy-drinking wine that goes with everything”, you cannot really blame the consumer. All things being equal, including price, why wouldn’t you go for the wine that was 13.5% as opposed to 12.5%? Maybe some people think it is some kind of score.

Perhaps it’s all part of the “big is beautiful” view of life. Philip Goodband mentions how wine glasses have morphed from the measly 100ml Paris goblet to something that can hold 175ml or even 250ml of wine. This upward trend is certainly there on the street if you think of baby buggies and cars. Maybe these high-alcohol monsters are simply the wine trade’s answer to gas-guzzling SUVs ready to crush the competition beneath their chrome-plated bull bars. Or, to turn it around and consider the consumer, picture a blonde ploughing up the traffic in her Chelsea tractor. Will she sip a delicate Soave at the end of the day, or turn to something big and beefy?

Of course, one shouldn’t get carried away with stereotypes or imagine that all warm-climate producers are pushing for more alcohol. Many are fighting the upward trend in the name of subtlety. “I’d say that plenty of Aussie producers were making wines with more elegance and restraint,” claims Phil Reedman, Tesco’s man on the ground Down Under. “Look at the best wines from cooler-climate areas such as Margaret River, Coonawarra, Alpine Valleys and Yarra Valley, and you’ll see this.” The same is true in California with winemakers like Paul Draper keen to foster moderation. Unfortunately, there’s little sign that wine critics or those who seek their praise are following suit.

Finally, as with all drinks-related matters in the UK, there’s the issue of tax. Historically, our tastes have always been fashioned by fiscal regimes that favour one type of booze over another. For some reason, the tax on wine is flat, while for spirits and beer it is tied to alcoholic strength. The beer lobby thinks this is unfair and says it contravenes an EU ruling from the 1980s. Lobbyists have just told the Treasury it is losing £200 million a year by having a flat rate on wine. Gordon Brown is said to be very interested. 

Example abvs…

REDS
Robert Mondavi Winery Napa Valley Merlot (US) – 14.5%
Jacob’s Creek Shiraz (Australia)– 14%
Campo Viejo Rioja Crianza (Spain) – 13.5%
Montana Merlot Cabernet (New Zealand) – 13%
Chianti Melini (Italy) – 12.5%
Calvet Reserve Bordeaux (France) – 12%

WHITES
Arniston Bay Chenin Blanc/Chardonnay (South Africa) – 14%
Blossom Hill Chardonnay (US) – 13.5%
Canaletto Chardonnay Verdecca (Italy) – 12.5%
Torres Viña Esmerelda (Spain) – 11.5%
The Naked Grape Riesling (Germany) – 11%
Jacob’s Creek Semillon/Chardonnay (Australia) – 10.5%
Aveleda Vinho Verde (Portugal) – 9%

© db July 2006