High alcohol levels 19 July 2006

Cassuis writes (in response to Michael Fridjhon's article 'High-alcohol wines ripe for viticultural intervention':

I have to agree with almost all of Mr Fridjhon's comments. There is a definite gap that can be filled by viticulture, but in the same breath I want to play devil's advocate. From the tone of the article, the lay person will gather that this higher alcohol scenario is something special to South Africa. Not the case: Australia, USA, Southern France at large, and lately our Bordeaux brethren, are not far behind the 14.5-plus percent wines.

Another point that needs touching is our labelling laws, allowing 0.5 percent play. I stand to be corrected but US law allows up to 1.5 percent play for 14 percent wines and 1percent play for those over 14%. Their production laws are also a little more lax regarding the addition  of water to tanks that had 'extended hangtime' – a very, very common action taken by almost all, in this regard I think poor viticulture is to blame!

My last issue is this: Almost everyone that writes about wine and professes their love of the lower alcohols of old, also serves on tasting panels for competitions and ratings in general.  Let's turn around those bottles which have been plastered in awards and medals.... except for the odd one, you won't find a lot of sub-14 percent candidates there!

Comment from Tim James: True enough about the show-winners, I'm afraid. I know many judges, including myself – and better ones than I, who go into the competition determined to punish the alcoholic wines and reward subtlety and finesse ... and come out having done just the opposite. As Cassuis says,  that's what these wines are designed to do. Unfortunately no-one has really worked out how to design competitions to avoid the problem. The last 'light' wine I can think of doing well in such a line-up was the Spier Chenin, winner of the last Chenin Challenge; I think it was under 13 percent alcohol.

There do seem to be gratifying signs, especially in Europe, that winelovers are getting very tired of these big wines. The fact that the Californians are worried by the situation is indicated by the widespread use of alcohol reduction means, including reverse osmosis, spinning cones, and good old dilution (no, 'rehydration' to replace the water lost in long hang-times whereby the grapes can get those ultra-ripe flavours that seem so loved nowdays).

Cathy van Zyl comments on the US laws:
Cassuis touches on a topic I intend looking into in greater depth once I've stopped typing as fast as I can (for Platter and other things, like proper work) and done some serious thinking – longer hang times, better viticultural practices and higher alcohols. But suffice it for now for me to comment on the US alcohol regulations as described to me a few weeks ago when I was in Napa; and clarified later on by importer Bartholomew Broadbent and Judd Winery winemaker Charles Thomas. Clarified as much as they can be, that is, for while I understand the broad concept, the actual practicality passes me by.

The regulations (for wines to be sold in the US) as I understand them are: For a wine that is measured as 14.0% and below, there is a 1.5% tolerance either way – as long that the wine is not claimed to be above 14.0. For example, a label that says 12.5% would be good for a wine that has up to
14.0% or down to 11.0% alcohol. Further, a wine that is 14.0% or below can also be specifically named as 'Table wine' on the label, with no alcohol figure mentioned.

For a wine that is measured greater than 14.0% there is a 1% tolerance (as long as it isn't claimed that the alcohol is below 14%). Therefore, for the label that says 16.0%, the wine could have a measured
alcohol as high as 17.0%, or as low as 15.0%.

Note that 14% is a bit of a break point – it is the upper limit of labelling for the first group and the lower limit of labelling for the next group.

As far as exports go, US wines have conform to the importing country's regulations (and sometimes there will be different labels, depending on where they are for). Charles recalls that when he was working at Mondavi in the late 1980s, they used the EU label for some wine going to Quebec, which had a 0.3% tolerance (as opposed to the 0.5% tolerance in Europe).  The wine was 0.1% off target by
Quebec's analysis and they insisted the label be changed.