Rising alcohol levels give wine lovers headache
Do those New World Cabernets and Zinfandels make your head spin? Fed up with having to stop drinking after just one glass?
Plenty of wine lovers around the world will have noticed their favourite tipples are getting stronger, and many of them are unhappy about the hangovers that come with increased alcohol levels.
But it seems they have only themselves to blame as experts say that changing consumer tastes are mainly responsible for driving the trend. Wine critics and advances in winemaking techniques also shoulder some of the blame for what experts say are unbalanced wines that can cause health risks and safety issues, casting a pall over the pleasure of imbibing.
“The rise in alcohol content of wine is primarily man-made,” reported a working paper by the American Association of Wine Economists in 2011.
Over the last two decades, drinkers have developed a passion for fruity, aromatic wines with round, silky tannins, encouraged by high ratings from critics.
Even for growers who favour elegance over “fruit bombs”, the quest for ripe tannins has led to grapes with more sugar, which transforms during fermentation into higher alcohol levels.
“I would stress that higher alcohol levels are never our aim, but rather the logical consequence of the way we work in the vineyards today, which has evolved considerably compared to how it was 20 or more years ago,” says Christian Seely, managing director of AXA Millesime’s wine estates in France and Portugal.
A couple of decades ago, yields were twice what they are today, and very little sorting was done to select the best fruit.
The alcohol levels might have been lower, but the tannins were often unripe, requiring years of cellaring to soften.
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