SEBASTOPOL, Calif. - California's big reds are coming on strong these days as winemakers pursue riper, fuller-flavoured fruit.
A number of wines have been creeping past 14 per cent alcohol and even into the 15-to 16 per cent range, as opposed to the tamer 12-to 13 per cent of years past. This is largely because vintners wait longer to pick their grapes. More mature fruit is thought to make tastier wine, but it also means sugar levels have a chance to rise, which comes with the side-effect of pumping up the alcohol volume. Warmer harvests only increase the phenomenon.
Some are calling for a halt to the so-called "hot wines."
"I just hate high-alcohol wines," said Randy Dunn, founder of Dunn Vineyards, who fired off an open letter last year urging consumers to demand wines of 14 per cent alcohol or less.
Darrell Corti, president of Corti Brothers, a Sacramento wine and food market, is also in the less-is-more camp, announcing last year his store won't carry table wines over 14.5 per cent alcohol.
Still, big reds, many of which are highly rated by critics, have their champions.
"They fill your mouth with flavour; you can chew on them. They linger on your palate when you're drinking them and that's what Napa is known for - its big, chewy cabs," said Doug White, director of operations for the Vintner's Collective, a Napa tasting room specializing in boutique wineries.
For those who don't like the big wines, some have an issue with the style of higher-alcohol vintages while others are wary of the punch they can pack.
One definition of the "right" alcohol level is if two people can finish a bottle and "wish there was a little bit more," said Dunn. "You don't do that with a 15.5 per cent or 16 per cent alcohol wine," he added. "You'd be lying on the floor."
It's not always easy to tell just how much alcohol is in a wine.
Wines containing seven per cent to 14 per cent alcohol can be labelled just "table wine" or "light wine," as opposed to listing the alcohol content, under U.S. federal regulations. When a percentage is listed it can be off by up to 1.5 per cent, a tolerance granted because one batch of wine may differ from another, said Art Resnick, spokesman for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in Washington, D.C. Wines over 14 per cent alcohol, which fall into a higher tax category, must list alcohol levels with a tolerance of plus or minus one per cent.
The higher alcohol trend goes back about 10 years when growers started letting grapes stay on the vines longer to develop the full flavour of the fruit, said Kenneth Fugelsang, professor of enology and winemaster of the commercial winery run by California State University, Fresno.
California seems to have been a leader, although higher-alcohol wines are also being made in other warm climates, such as Australia, he said.
One way to have ripe fruit without high alcohol is to use various technologies available to pull alcohol out of wine. But that's not something many winemakers want to talk about for fear of crushing the romantic vision of wine as an ancient art untainted by technology, said Clark Smith, co-owner and senior enologist of Vinovation, a company in the wine country town of Sebastopol that reduces alcohol levels through reverse osmosis.
The truth is that wine has already been affected by technology, from stainless-steel tanks to sterile filtration, he said.
