How much is too much alcohol? A volatile question in the wine world these days as it is now common to see wines in excess of 15 percent alcohol. Before I address this question and (spoiler alert) ultimately don’t answer it, let’s consider four things that CH3CH2OH brings to a wine.
A byproduct of yeast fermentation, ethyl alcohol brings weight or what’s known as body to a wine. Without the alcohol, wines simply lack an innate wine quality and that makes them feel somehow wrong in our mouths.
We perceive alcohol as sweet. Often described as a flavor, it really is a sensation: Alcohol creates a feeling of heat on our palates.
Some consumers, winemakers and wine writers are pretty riled up about the rising tide of alcohol in wine. Back in 2007, Randy Dunn, the winemaker for Dunn Vineyards, wrote me and several dozen wine commentators. His 400-word letter accused the wine press of leading “the score-chasing winemakers/owners up the alcohol curve” and politely asked us to lead them back down.
Dunn, who still is quite vocal in his crusade to lower alcohol levels, made excellent points: Higher-alcohol wines are tough to pair food with; they make it easy to breeze past moderate consumption levels; and the massive weight, excessive sweetness and exceedingly hot qualities obscure a wine’s sense of place.
Why am I dredging all this up now? I recently tasted several dozen cabernet sauvignons from Alexander Valley, Calif. With few exceptions, all were over 14 percent alcohol. If I were in lockstep with Dunn and writers who refuse to review wines this high in alcohol I ought to be quiet about these wines. But, I can’t, because a number of them were phenomenal.
I found them to be flavorful, exciting, interesting and, most of all, balanced.
Balance is the word that is too often left out of this alcohol debate. If you taste a wine and the first thing you talk about is its heat, sweetness and massiveness, then that wine is out of balance and, perhaps, should be judged accordingly. The same can be said for lopsided measures of acidity, tannins and other components.
If you get delectable combinations of cocoa powder, toffee, bright black cherry, subtle smokiness, black licorice and notes of bell pepper (all positive qualities of a cabernet in my book), then we’re tasting quality, no? And we can assume that the alcohol merely played its role without stealing the spotlight.
It is not my place to tell a winemaker how to make his or her wine. It is my place to be fair and as unbiased as possible in the intractably subjective world of wine evaluation.
$75
Two Thumbs Way Up
Complex and ever-changing aromas of raspberries, dark cherries, smoke and black licorice. Intense flavors of dark chocolate, plum, black licorice, black cherry and an interesting toasted almond/graham cracker quality.
Note: Wines are rated on a scale ranging up from Thumbs Down, One Thumb Mostly Up, One Thumb Up, Two Thumbs Up, Two Thumbs Way Up and Golden Thumb Award. Prices are suggested retail prices as provided by the winery, one of its agents, a local distributor or retailer.
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