Is There a Cultural Shift Towards Lower Alcohol in Wine?
Written by Jonathan Kemp
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“The jihadist movements of nonsulphured wines, green, underripe wines, low alcohol, insipid stuff promoted by the anti-pleasure police & neo-anti-alcohol proponents has run its course as another extreme and useless movement few care about.” -Robert M. Parker, Jr.
So much of the natural wine movement and my own love of wine is directly opposite of this mentality, that it's hard not to laugh at this quote, probably going on a decade since it was uttered. Though it contains all the vitriol of Rush Limbaugh, Robert Parker was not a right wing talk radio host but a lawyer for a bank who became “the most influential wine critic in the world,” to quote the NY Times. Parker essentially made his name by creating an overly simplistic way of rating wines using a 100-point scale. He then employed that scale to champion the types of wines he loved; often the richest, most fruit-forward, and alcoholic wines in the world. Given the reductive nature of his approach, it's no surprise that it gave way to a homogeneity where wines from all over the world were trying to taste the same in order to score higher in his reviews.
Can higher alcohol levels in wine be attributed to the enormous rise of Robert Parker's influence that began in the early 1980s? According to a study by the American Association of Wine Economists, every country in the world saw a jump in the alcohol levels of wine from 1992 to 2007. The US, Argentina, Australia, and Chile, respectively, saw the biggest jumps. The EU, meanwhile, barely cracked 13% abv on average and only did because of Spain's much higher numbers. But how much of this is driven by climate change and how much is driven by market demands? The data seems to point more towards human intervention.
To explore what this all entails, this month we're featuring wines with no more than 11.5% alcohol by volume (abv). For many this will be a nice transition out of Dry January. On the cold, snowy January days we were auditioning wines for this month's selections, I was questioning the theme, wondering if big, beefy wines would be more suited to the chilly temperatures. Instead it reinforced why many of us have been seeking out these wines to begin with: they were rejuvenating, not fatiguing, and full of flavor and personality. They felt like a sign of life, like a crocus popping its petals through the gray blanket of winter.
There are many advantages to low alcohol wines. A 14.5% abv wine has about 25% more alcohol than an 11.5% abv wine, which you will likely feel the next day. But a 14.5% wine—a Chateauneuf-du-Pape or a typical California Cabernet for instance—also has more limited food pairing options outside big, rich meals. When I'm picking out wine to have on hand for the week, I go for wines that will go with whatever we might decide to have for dinner, so versatility is key. A wine for a weeknight meal with lower alcohol often fits better with how I eat. Occasionally I'll fry up a ribeye where I need a bigger, structured red, but usually we're eating things like risotto, soba noodles, roast chicken, pierogis, or Thai takeout. Spicy foods, in particular, go best with lower abv wines since alcohol will only dial up the painful aspects of the spice. If I'm out at a wine bar or having wine without food, the lower alcohol content is also advantageous. I find it more fun to plow through a bottle with abandon instead of needing to pace yourself with something dense and intense.
Historically speaking wine was typically lower in alcohol than today. For much of human history wine was a source of hydration, safer than water, and often wine was diluted with water to make it more suitable for this purpose. In Ancient Greece, it was considered barbaric not to dilute wine with water. Even Thomas Jefferson diluted wine with water. Not until the 20th century did it become a more bourgeoisie luxury, where a big, macho wine became a regular purchase for the middle class instead of one reserved for special occasions. Wine also had to compete with all sorts of other beverages like soda. A nation of Coca-Cola drinkers may not be the target audience for more delicate, dry, low alcohol wines.
The rise in alcohol mostly coincided with technological advances. Alcohol in wine is directly correlated with the amount of sugar in the grapes. From 1980 to 2007 the average sugar content at harvest in California rose 11%. Rising global temperatures mean more sugar, but it is not enough to explain the increased alcohol in wine. Part of this was choosing to let the grapes hang longer and maximize ripeness. In California the conditions allowed grapes to hang way past typical ripeness, almost becoming raisins. With cellar manipulation, these overripe grapes could make the big, smooth reds that had become popular. We also have to look at yeasts. Yeasts are what convert sugar into alcohol, and until the 20th century all wines were fermented only with whatever wild yeasts were on the surface of the grapes, present in the vineyard, or living in the cellar. If the cellar was too cold or the yeasts weren't very strong, the wine would still have sugar left over, meaning lower alcohol. Grapes with too much sugar at harvest were in danger of not fermenting fully dry. These limitations went away with the commercial, industrial yeasts that became widespread in the 20th Century. They are far more efficient at turning all the sugar into alcohol. Modern temperature control also helps keep the yeasts in the ideal range for fermentation. Chaptalization—simply adding sugar to the grapes to boost potential alcohol—is a very old, very common practice in colder years, legal in many regions where the wines would be in danger of not selling below a certain abv. All of these factors led to a steady climb in alcohol percentage.
As with anything, though, the excesses lead to corrections, and nowadays winemakers can fine tune things in ways that lead to dry wines with less alcohol that aren't short on flavor. Much of this is the result of vineyard work. Managing the leaves in the canopy changes how much sunlight gets to the fruit, resulting in more sugar. Many growers find that using organic and biodynamic practices lead to grapes that are more mature and flavorful earlier on, allowing them to pick at lower sugar levels without getting the green vegetal notes that can accompany underripe fruit. Also, working with varieties that are suited and adapted to where they are planted helps immensely. Initially I thought this month would be overrepresented by wines from cooler climates. And while we have wines from Austria and Canada, we also found wines from the warmest parts of Europe, like southern Italy, southern France, and Spain. Some of this is because varieties that have been in an area for centuries have adapted and can achieve maturity before the potential alcohol gets unwieldy.
Between changing consumer tastes and the chaos in the natural world, it's unclear what to expect in the future. Climate change is producing results that are anything but consistent. Importer Steven Graf notes that "the Loire in particular is an interesting example of a place that traditionally struggled for ripeness, then saw vintage after vintage with wines well above 14% abv, and now in 2023 are again producing wines of 10 and 11 percent." Many regions are dealing with sheer unpredictability, but climate change also has at least made it possible to have wine from regions that were previously too cold to ripen grapes—like Quebec. For instance, we're featuring a Gamay from Pinard et Fils that they can only make in years when it's ripe enough. Even so it only registers 9.5% alcohol. But an open mind towards wines like this allows for more styles, voices, and places—the opposite of Robert Parker’s era of conformity.
The desire for lower alcohol wines is not a new thing, and it is hardly at odds with pleasure or flavor in the examples we've found. Subtlety and detail are what I love about wine, and lower alcohol levels often give me more of this. Do I intentionally discriminate against higher abv? No, but there's something liberating about seeing a wine that is less than 12%. I'll probably drink more of it and at a faster rate, so my liver may not exactly be convinced, but I like the rustic pleasure of a wine with humble ambitions. Wine that doesn't need to bludgeon me, wine that is ok with me ignoring it in favor of the food, the company, the setting. A friendlier companion, as it were, a touch more polite but still up for anything.