Having a 15.8% 2007 Syrah tonight. Last of three bottles. Seems to have gone sweet and off balance. Can alcohol eat the fruit over time? The earlier bottles consumed a few years back seemed better.
In my (limited) experience: fruit will fade, tannins will soften, and acidity will mellow, but heat from alcohol will usually stick around.
That said, some wines hide their alcohol well and others don’t. If you notice it now, you’ll probably notice it later.
These are gross generalizations, and I’m sure there are exceptions.
Port ages pretty well??
Exactly. There’s a coincidental relationship between higher ABV and poor aging, but not a direct one. Alcohol and sugar are both preservatives that can help a wine age well. So, you have to consider what the wine is when thinking about how it may age. With sweet wines, late picked tend to age well. A lot of what would otherwise fade in the bottle, already faded on the vine, and what’s left is more concentrated…and you’re preserving that. Fortified wines aren’t typically picked late. You’re preserving a lot of aromatics and retarding the aging process. You added the heat to a point that’s in balance and should remain in balance - it’s there by design. The trouble zone is late picked dry wines. A lot of volatiles can be gone before you pick, a lot of whatever that holds a wine together for a long time can be gone. But, we all know some exceptions. Some exceptional vintage where sugar got ahead of everything else, so ignoring the brix and picking for the qualities that really matter was the way to go. Some regions the sugar gets ahead, but it’s the same deal. Some winemakers are masters of high ABV wines that age well. Some have mastered picking late for said reasons, but water back and you have no clue they did that - the wines are great and age well. But then there are the clueless dumbshits who try to copy the excellent riper wines, but have no idea what they’re doing. They pick past any sensible metric and craft bold wines and temporarily hide the high ABV (and other issues), but don’t hold together long. Fine to drink young, if you like that style, but a disaster to age.
The high alcohol of port is basically a preservative, right? The sugar as well. Perhaps you don’t get the same benefits when dry and <18%.
Chris Whitcrafts wines can answer that. His Pinot Noir were almost always above 15% and perhaps more than that stated on the label. Im drinking some from the early 90s and they are fantastic.
OTOH, I`ve had some early Sea Smoke Pinots that were made in the super ripe pick, high alcohol and water back method and they are mostly still high alcohol and offer nothing to associate with the initial fruit profile.
Although dry oxidative Jerez lasts pretty much forever at 18-22%. Vin Jaune is not fortified but often is bottled north of 15% and is similarly bulletproof. Of course these aren’t at all fruity wines, perhaps this matters.
As others have said, it’s not the alcohol alone that’s the issue. Some 15% wines taste hot young and old, others don’t; some only show their heat with age. To me this is a mystery, but it is certainly true.
It seems that there are lots of other factors, including acidity, which I haven’t seen mentioned. As fruit ripens and sugar levels rise, acidity drops.
It’s not just that the alcohol and sugar preserve the wine; they give it structure, so the balance of those wines are completely different from a dry 15.5% Aussie shiraz or California pinot or zin. As Wes said, Port grapes aren’t picked late, so they have acid, another preservative, and another factor in the balance.
Vin jaune often is lower than 15% I think (Wikipedia link). Their longevity I suspect is due to the fact that the grapes are picked late in a cool climate, so the wines have boatloads of acid, both from the climate and the late harvesting, which concentrates everything in the grapes somewhat.
As I was posting notes on CT, I came across this one that also makes a statement for this thread:
1984 WILLIAMS SELYEM LENO MARTINELLI VINEYARD RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY ZINFANDEL- 17.5% alc., 1.5% residual sugar; brought by the one who made it, this was such a treat; it was so fruit forward with a huge dose of cranberry cherry enhanced by a large spicy, clove and pepper finish; magnificent; not decanted, but lots of sediment was evident once the 750 ml. bottle was close to drained. drank 5/17.
Right indeed on the Vin Jaune, both higher and lower. Oxidative Jerez in very high in acidity also. Then there is Madiera which is sweet, oxidative, acidy and immortal.
Absolutely not. Look at Amarone and ripe year Barolo. They age for many decades.
But what’s the statement? I don’t think anyone contests that late harvest sweet wines can last.
The real issue is which high alcohol dry wines evolve into lighter fluid. I’m not sure, but from my experience it seems that some grapes handle the alcohol better than others when the wine is left dry – cabernet, zin, nebbiolo, for instance, and maybe sangiovese grosso. I don’t find most 15% pinot or grenache or syrah appealing at all. But that’s a huge generalization.
Amarone has the advantage of all those raisined grapes. It’s kind of a different beast.
Any idea what the alcohols were in Barolo before, say, the 1980s? I would wonder if they were really that high. Modern vineyard techniques have allowed people to pick later everywhere.
This was not a LH wine, but it did have RS as mentioned when by Burt.
If it was 17.5% plus 1.5% the grapes it had to be picked very late, unless it was fortified. Assuming it wasn’t fortified, the grapes would have been at something like 34 Brix, by my calculations!
As you can see, there does not appear to be any absolute cause-and-effect relationship here. Some wines truly seem to be able to handle the alcohol level over time, where is I agree that many simply do not.
We are probably in the prime time to see how this phenomenon plays out. As we all know, the mid-2000s brought us some of the highest percent alcohol wines that California had ever seen. And the same can certainly be true of many regions throughout Europe and Australia.
I guess time will tell?
The brix would have been <=31.4 i.e. (17.5/.585)+1.5 note 0.585 is a typical sugar to alcohol conversion ratio.
A better estimate would be to assume the alc was ~17% at the end of fermentation making the brix 30.6. This assumes the alcohol went up by 0.5% during its time in barrel, not an unreasonable assumption.
I’ve had a 1974 Swan Trenton estate PN, a ~15% alc wine that showed quite well and not hot (something I don’t esp like). This was in a Swan PN vertical including wines from the 70s to 05 (a few from each decade). The 74 wasn’t my favorite of the 70s or 80s, in part because there were lots of v strong wines there, but still a good wine.
I had not thought about those, Eric. I’ve had a few older bottles and they have always been quite good.
I’ve seen some Zin this year picked at 34 brix in early September.
Would it be safe(r) to say wines with high alcohol but without another structural component that is also very high (sugar, acid, etc.) are less likely to age well?