Balancing act: managing high alcohol in wine

Alcohol levels are steadily rising. What does that mean for the wine in our glasses - and what can winemakers do about it? Plus: what I've been drinking this week.

A question of balance: these Catalan castellers show how it’s done. But 15% or 16% alcohol can throw a wine right off balance

IT is a winter of violent storms and erratic weather in Europe: a clear herald of climate change. But the proof for me was also clear in some of the 2022 Burgundies I tasted en primeur last month.

Many of the reds are much bigger, plusher wines than those of even a decade ago – and they’re stronger. One illustrious Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru weighed in at 14.5 per cent: still in balance, though some others weren’t. I’ve seen the same issue recently in wines from Bordeaux and northern Spain weighing in at 15 to 16 degrees alcohol.

For the last two decades it has been widely recognised that wine alcohol is increasing. But while there are things winemakers can do to reduce it, in vineyard and winery, we should be paying more attention to why it is that some stronger wines taste more – or less – alcoholic.

The science behind the rising alcohol is simple enough. Sugar levels in grapes rise as they ripen; when average temperatures go up, there is a corresponding increase in grapes’ sugar and thus their wine’s potential alcohol content. And then at around 16.5 per cent, yeasts get poisoned by the alcohol they have created, ending fermentation.

A 2021 Liv-Ex study of 35,000 wines across 30 years showed significant rises in alcohol in wines – especially red – across most major wine regions (it actually found little movement in Burgundy.)

The contrast over time is particularly clear in Bordeaux. Producers there used to suffer regular problems ripening grapes in the region’s cooler Atlantic climate. They routinely had to add sugar to help fermentation along – chaptalisation, as it is known. Finished wines were, until the 1970s, mostly around 11 to 12 per cent alcohol.

Meanwhile in the southern Rhône, 15 per cent alcohol in reds has become commonplace. The only major French region still producing wine at 12 per cent is Champagne.

But higher alcohol isn’t just down to climate change. The Liv-Ex Study showed a sharp rise in alcohol levels in Californian reds in the first decade of this century – suggesting the role of style and the taste for riper, more powerful wines. The same is true for Bordeaux, where for years the overweening influence of US critic Robert Parker, an unashamed fan of bigger, riper styles, encouraged stronger cuvées.

Nevertheless, higher alcohol levels look here to stay. And that’s a problem for me when the alcohol pulls a wine out of shape, altering the balance between other components of its flavour.

In this way, the phenomenon is gradually changing the character of wines from major regions. If some Californians want to make 16-per-cent monsters with an alcohol burn to them – well, I probably wouldn’t have been drinking their wines anyway. But if the basic character of Crozes-Hermitage or Chianti changes, that would surely be a loss.

Some producers use tricks in the winery to reduce alcohol. The simplest, in many places illegal but reportedly widespread in California, is “watering back” the wine – ie simply diluting the must (juice and grape solids) with water prior to fermentation. There are also more technologically complex (and expensive) methods such as reverse osmosis and spinning cones, which strip out alcohol after fermentation.

The far more holistic way to lower alcohol is in the vineyard – mainly by picking earlier, when the grapes have reached phenolic (physiological) ripeness but before full sugar ripeness.

But the effect of alcohol on a wine’s character is ultimately a question of balance between its key components – fruit, acidity, tannins and alcohol – and how that affects the resulting flavour compounds. This doesn’t preclude brilliant wines having high alcohol. But it does mean that where alcohol is high, winemakers need to pay greater attention to keeping it in balance with the other components: you shouldn’t be noticing the alcohol on your palate first.

Mikael Laizet, an oenologist with Michel Rolland Consulting in Bordeaux, says: “For balance, you need alcohol; structure – good tannins; and acidity. If you don't have the right tannins, the acidity will be highlighted. And if you have the alcohol and the acidity and not the structure, you will also see wines that are out of balance.”

Indeed a well-balanced wine can taste less alcoholic than it is. For example, at last month’s St Emilion Grand Cru tasting in London, I was surprised by the 2020 vintage of Château Badette, weighing in at 15.5 per cent: it tasted a couple of degrees lower than that.

Owner Arnaud Vandenbogaerde told me: “You need lots of good fruit: the best can give you a wine where you don’t taste the high alcohol.” He also highlighted the importance for him of Cabernet Franc (he uses 25 per cent in this cuvée), where sugar levels are lower at phenolic ripeness than in Merlot grapes. For similar reasons, Hakima Dib at Château Fonplégade told me they plan to increase the proportion of Cabernet Franc they use to 15-20 per cent from the 10 per cent in the 2020 vintage.

Down in the Rhône, the Wine Society’s Exhibition Gigondas 2017, made by Château De St-Cosme, is more typical for its appellation these days with 15 per cent alcohol. It’s a big and rich wine – bigger than it would have been 10 years ago. But it’s well balanced.

The Society’s Rhône buyer Marcel Orford-Williams comments that picking dates are the most crucial factor here: “many [in the region] still pick according to sugar ripeness which is nearly always a mistake.” But he points to the trickiness of those decisions for growers: “Grenache is awkward to grow, especially at a time of drought and heatwave. Picked too early, the wine can taste vegetal and unbalanced.”

Finally, nearby in the Rhône, Domaine des Escaravailles “Argilla ad Argillam” 2020, Rasteau boasts lovely sweet fruit and well-balanced acidity - yet while it’s a solid 14.5 per cent alcohol, it doesn’t taste it.

Madeline Ferran, co-winemaker with her father Gilles, tells me, “We age this cuvée in terracotta amphorae to try to bring out the freshness.” She adds: “Balance in the wine is more important for me than the alcohol content, because even if a wine has 13 per cent alcohol, if it lacks balance, then it will feel much more alcoholic, and vice versa.”

As Laizet comments: “Acidity weakens the sensation of alcohol. And you manage acidity with more or less extraction. With maceration you add body [gras] which will compensate for the acidity and will also cover [enrober] the alcohol a little.”

Higher alcohol levels in wine aren’t going away. And they will change the character of some wines – though I have to admit I preferred these latest red Burgundies to, for example, some of the weedy 2007’s I tasted in my first en primeur week back in 2009. But winemakers need to tackle the issue: balance, not power, is the way forward.

L: Mikael Laizet (pic: Gavin Quinney). R: Madeline Ferran (pic: Domaine des Escaravailles)

What I’ve been drinking this week

These are some more of the wines I was drinking last week in Barcelona and in Aragón on a press trip to Campo to Borja (of which more another time.)

Gramona Lustros 2014 - Gramona is in my opinion the finest producer of Cava - or at least, what used to be called Cava. It would take a whole blog post to explain the infighting that has dogged Spain’s most famous sparkling wine over the past decade, though a key moment was in 2019 when Gramona and five other leading producers walked out of the main Cava body to form a new designation called Corpinnat. This wine is thus labelled (it must have been the first vintage bottled with the new indication.) From biodynamically grown Xarello and Macabeo grapes, this is fine, elegant and long - a very serious sparkler.

Borsao Zarihs 2019, Campo de Borja - an interesting project from Campo de Borja’s largest producer, this wine came out of work with Australian winemaker Chris Ringland. He thought the soil in some of their plots was perfectly suited to Australian shiraz clones: he has helped them make wine from the resulting plantings over the past decade. Dark fruit and black pepper; in feel, it’s somewhere indefinable between Old World and New (All About Wine, ND John, NY Wines and elsewhere, from £16.99).

Alta Alella GX tinto 2022, Alella - Alella is a minor Catalan DO just north up the coast from Barcelona, mostly known for its fresh whites (OK: I confess I didn’t know they made red there at all before drinking this one.) This a fresh, fruity, spicy Garnacha - just so drinkable with tapas. I enjoyed a glass at Carles Abellan’s ever-brilliant Tapas 24 restaurant (N/A UK.)

• Transparency declaration: I tasted at Borsao as a guest of the company and of DO Campo de Borja. The latter also hosted the dinner where I drank the Gramona.