The other night, we were starting one of our favorite weekend rituals: prepping for dinner and opening up a bottle of “cooking wine” to enjoy while we were making dinner. We were pretty excited about opening this wine – it was a Piña 2007 D’Adamo Vineyard Cabernet, from one of our wine clubs. We joined the Piña wine club in 2005 because we were really in love with the flavors from the mountain fruit, sourced from Howell Mountain in Napa Valley. Grapes grown on the mountains produce the intensely flavored wine that we love. But when we popped open this bottle, we were disappointed to find that Piña is falling into the same trend as many California winemakers: stratospherically high alcohol levels.
It wasn’t always this way. As little as 15 years ago, most wines usually checked in between 12 and 14 percent alcohol by volume. With the exception of an occasional Zinfandel, it was rare to find any wine above 14% alcohol. But in recent years, winemakers discovered the concept of hangtime, and someone decided that American consumers had a preference for intense, high alcohol wines. In a way it somewhat makes sense, because many wines today are being produced for drinking now versus for long term storage: high alcohol wines tend to have fewer acids and tannins and so less structure for aging.
High alcohol in wine is very simply a function of the ripeness of the grapes. Winemakers are looking not only at sugar levels in the grapes, but also something called phenolic ripeness. Phenols are the compounds in the grape that contribute the color, aroma, and tannins to the resulting wine. These phenolics develop in the seeds, skins, and pulp of the grape. At harvest time, winemakers typically measure both the sugar levels in the grape and the phenolic ripeness. In warmer areas like Napa Valley, a grape can reach sugar ripeness, meaning it is ripe enough to achieve a certain alcohol level and become wine, but it might not be phenolically, or physiologically ripe. The effect of this may be a wine that tastes a bit green or harsh – or basically unripe. So, winemakers began leaving the grapes on the vine longer to achieve additional ripeness. The key to “hangtime” – referring to how long the grapes stay on the vine – is a balancing of the sugar ripeness and the phenolic ripeness. What we are seeing more and more however, are wines that are achieving monstrously high alcohol levels of over 15%, at the cost of the proper balance of acidity and tannins.
If you haven’t ever tried one of these wines, the flavor is pretty distinctive. If you’ve ever had a shot of hard alcohol, just think about how that felt going down your throat. It’s very similar with a high alcohol wine. Wines that are high in alcohol are called “hot,” and this is a reference to the tactile, prickly alcohol sensation in your mouth when you drink it. Other than the fact that the “hot” sensation is not altogether pleasant, another problem is that alcohol is really all you taste. It’s hard to distinguish the layers of fruit flavors and balancing tannins, all the complexity that should be in wine, if all you can taste is alcohol.
You might think that these types of wines would be so unpopular that winemakers would adjust their methods to try to achieve more balance in their wines. However, these wines are achieving amazing scores from the likes of Robert Parker and Wine Spectator. When we visited Napa Valley in 2005, we stopped at the Darioush Winery on the Silverado Trail, and were wowed by the incredible facilities: a jaw dropping Mediterranean style building with towering Greek columns out front. Seeing how impressive the building and grounds were, we were really excited to try the wine. But we were disappointed: even back in 2005 these wines were achieving alcohol levels well over 15%. The only thing we could taste in the wine was the alcohol. But Darioush was and continues to be very highly rated wine. Not only are they highly rated, but they are also very expensive. Darioush wines range between $45-$80 a bottle and Piña wines are regularly around $75 a bottle. The Piña D’Adamo Vineyard wine that we mentioned earlier weighs in at a whopping 15.4% alcohol and is very highly thought of among critics. When we tried this wine, we were disappointed that we could only taste the heat of the alcohol. The Piña wine was particularly disappointing because this is seems to be a recent trend. We took a look back at one of the first Piña wines we had ever tried, the 2002 Howell Mountain Estate Grown Cabernet. You expect some higher alcohol levels from mountain fruit, and the 2002 weighed in at a very reasonable, and very pleasurable 14.2%. After we opened the Piña, we headed down to the cellar to check out some additional Howell Mountain wines, to be sure that the higher alcohol wasn’t something that was inevitably associated with the mountain fruit. We discovered that our Atalon wines, also sourced from Howell Mountain, were coming in at just over 14%, which proves that you can have mountain fruit with balanced flavors.
There are many people who are militant about high alcohol levels, even more so than we are. We heard about a wine shop in Sacramento which in 2007 banned all wines over 14.5% alcohol, and many other sommeliers and wine shop owners have followed suit. We don’t feel that wines over 14.5% or even 15% should be automatically excluded. Some wines, particular Zinfandels, have a higher natural sugar level and can handle the higher alcohol level. Other grape varietals also can handle the higher alcohol because the winemaker is able to achieve the perfect balance between sugar ripeness and phenolic ripeness. We appreciate more the winemaker and vineyard manager who are able to harvest perfectly balanced grapes and still maintain the layers of flavor and complexity.
A few years ago, we attended a Cabernet symposium at the Nantucket Wine Festival, and when the time came for questions, we piped up with the alcohol content question. Most of the winemakers in attendance for the symposium, including our friend Corey Beck from Francis Ford Coppola Winery, reiterated their commitment to maintaining well-balanced wines. We hope that they maintain this commitment.
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