Alcohol levels
Alcohol - "the most potent component of wine."
Where wines with 12.5% alcohol by volume used to be the norm, 13.5% is now considered low in alcohol. Joanne Gibson explains why rising alcohol levels are a major headache..
Alcohol,” according to the Oxford Companion to Wine (second edition), “is the most potent component of wine, but it is probably the least discussed by consumers (unless in the context of hangovers).”
Well, there must be a lot more people complaining about hangovers than there used to be – though I also suspect the more fundamental topic of rising alcohol in wine is no longer limited to producers and critics. How can it be, when some wines are encroaching on the territory occupied by fortified wines – over 16% alcohol by volume (ABV)?
De Trafford Wines, Stellenzicht Vineyards and Anthonij Rupert Wines are among the many top-end producers pushing the upper limit, but rising alcohol has been a trend since the mid ’90s. Take Kanonkop Pinotage, for example, whose ABV was 13% in 1994 and 1995, hovered around 13.7% until and including the 2000 vintage, then shot up to 14.4% in 2001, 14.5% in 2002, 14.6% in 2003... Similarly, Nederburg’s Auction Cabernet Sauvignon had a median alcohol level of 12.28 over 25 vintages until 1996, when it started its upward climb: 12.84%, 12.85%, 12.97%, 13.83%, 14.44%... Warwick Trilogy, too, ranged between 12.5% and 13% in the early ’90s compared to 13.5% and 14.5% a decade later.
These are not isolated examples, nor is this trend limited to the Cape. But while you might expect “sunshine in a bottle” from South Africa, California or Australia, the same Bordeaux vignerons who used to despair of achieving 12% ABV are also increasingly uncorking rich, ripe, full-bodied wines. Some blame global warming, many point their finger at Robert Parker Jnr, the influential American wine critic with a taste for superripe fruit bombs whose 90-plus scores guarantee good sales internationally. But while chaptalisation (enrichment achieved by adding sugar to crushed grapes) and concentration (removing water through evaporation) are among the cellar techniques used in more marginal climates, inadequate sunlight has never been a problem in South Africa. So what is going on?
RIPE FOR THE PICKING
Alcohol is the product of fermentation of grape sugar, made possible by the presence of yeast which – in layman’s terms – “eats” the sugar and excretes alcohol and carbon dioxide as waste products. This continues either until the sugar runs out (resulting in a dry wine) or the alcohol rises to such an extent that it kills off the yeasts (leaving behind some residual sugar, which can make the wine taste fruity or downright syrupy in the case of a dessert wine). The higher the grape sugar, the higher the potential alcohol – and sugar levels are on the rise.
In South Africa specifically, the end of Apartheid meant access to better, disease-free vine cuttings and, in turn, fruit of greater ripeness. (To this day, however, leafroll virus which inhibits sugar accumulation remains a problem, the resulting red leaves that look so pretty in autumn being about the only good thing associated with it). At the same time, viticulturists and winemakers were suddenly exposed to the latest international know-how – and where they had typically picked grapes according to sugar levels (measured in degrees Balling) or acidity (pH), the new buzzwords were “physiological” and “phenolic” ripeness.
The new thinking was that in countries blessed with abundant sunlight, sugars accumulated too rapidly, before the grapes themselves were physically ripe (a possible explanation for why South African wines were so often criticised for their “greenness”). Growers were instead advised to leave their grapes on the vine until they had brown pips and slightly shrivelled skins (indicative of soft tannins and developed fruit fl avours) even if it meant that sugar levels soared (from a typical sugar level measurement of 23º Balling in the past to as high as 26º or 27º now, with a potential alcohol of 16 or 17%).
In addition to changes in the vineyards, developments have also taken place in the cellar. Yeasts have become more efficient – producing 1% of alcohol for every 16g of sugar where they previously needed 17g. And some winemakers have noted that wines fermented in the perfect conditions of modern stainless steel tanks result in wines with up to 1% higher alcohols than those fermented in traditional open cement tanks. All things considered, it’s little wonder that wines with 13.5% are now applauded for being low in alcohol.
BURN, BABY, BURN
An overly alcoholic wine might burn your nose when you smell it and your throat as you swallow it, or at least leave a hot after-taste. In the hands of talented winemakers such as David Traff ord or Guy Webber at Stellenzicht, however, high alcohol is unfathomable, the wines perfectly in balance – indeed, the sort of wines which tend to stand out in blind tastings and win competitions. But there are many reasons why rising alcohol is not a good thing, even in the best wines.
For starters, wine judges tend to sniff , swirl and spit; they probably wouldn’t want to drink a wine almost as strong as Port with dinner or over the course of an evening (especially if they had to drive home afterwards). Sure, there are people who share Robert Parker’s tastes; there are even some who expressly want more bang for their buck. But for those who simply haven’t given the matter much thought, it’s interesting to quantify how alcohol levels can quite dramatically aff ect sensible drinking guidelines (in South Africa, the recommended amount is a maximum of 21 units per week for men and 14 for women, see www.ara.co.za).
According to UK-based Alcohol in Moderation (AIM), a 175ml glass of wine at 12% ABV contains two units, the same as a double vodka or whisky (a double gin and tonic is usually around 13% ABV). A 175ml glass of wine at 15% ABV, however, contains 2.7 units – and if it is served in a 250ml glass, as happens quite often these days, that’s four units (double the recommended daily intake for a woman before she’s even sat down to dinner!).
But health concerns aside, there are several other reasons why riper isn’t always better. For starters, flavours of plums, berries, cherries and flowers can all too easily become flavours of prunes, currants, tar and leather. Alcohol also creates a barrier to tasting the more subtle flavours of food. Chemically speaking, the riper the grapes, the lower the total acidity – and the greater the risk of wine faults such as brettanomyces (certainly detected more often than it used to be in South Africa). And with acidity a measure of stability, late-picked wines (whose pH levels now nudge over 4 where they used to hover around 3.5) also don’t appear able to age as gracefully as their low-alcohol predecessors.
For producers, complications include sometimes not being permitted to sell their high-alcohol wines. Two years ago, supermarkets in Gauteng actually had to take all wines with an alcohol content higher than 14% off their shelves when somebody realised that the existing grocery licensing law didn’t accommodate the new generation blockbusters (fortunately Gauteng Premier Mbazima Shilowa is a serious wine lover and quickly took “appropriate steps”…). Further afield, South Africa has managed to negotiate 16.5% as the maximum ABV limit for wines imported into Europe (compared to just 15% for American and Australian wines), but for all the reasons outlined above, this is hardly likely to do our international wine quality image any favours.
DE-NATURALISATION OR BACK TO NATURE?
So can winemakers do anything about high alcohol? A few things, actually. Since 2006, it’s been legal to remove alcohol using sophisticated technologies like centrifuge, reverse osmosis, distillation and nano-fi ltration (though adding water – fairly routine in California – is not allowed; nor is any high-tech intervention permissible for wines destined for Europe, although one suspects this wouldn’t be an easy thing to police…).
Suffice to say that the costs involved mean only producers of high-end wines can afford to use the technology and they’re usually the ones who want to avoid manipulation, genuinely believing that “wine is made in the vineyard”. Canopy management (using the vine leaves to shade the grapes more effectively) and vine density (being planted closer together to grow deeper roots and work harder) are among the things being looked at to get the grapes right to begin with.
Apparently even more dramatic results can be achieved by going biodynamic, while there’s always genetic modifi cation for developing yeasts that transform sugar into alcohol less effi ciently – but those are weighty subjects for another time.
