If you were going to build out a cellar exclusively with high quality wines that are lower in alcohol, which wines would you go to? I’m curious about people’s favorite wines, red and white, that year in and year out are reliably lower ABV. And no going back in time to an earlier era, assume current/future releases. For the sake of this, let’s say everything has to be 13% or lower. I would submit off-dry german riesling from the mosel and nahe as an obvious, and great, source. Perhaps reds from the Jura, like Ganevat? Where else? Who else’s?
Most Champagne is, I suppose, but it’s not really interesting just to list a bunch of Champagnes.
Kutch is consistently sub 13% and excellent.
Ditto for Sandlands.
German Riesling.
Most of the Dirty & Rowdy wines are generally lower in alcohol, hovering the 12s for the most part.
Sandlands also does a good job keep the alcohol low.
Pet-nat. I do have a few ‘La Bubulle à Jeannot’ coming from Ganevat but obviously there’s all kinds from all over. I find Bugey Cerdon to be very user friendly and K&L usually has some…
Ceritas
Vinho Verde is often around 11%.
Bartlett Oak Dry Estate Blueberry NV - it can age for decades, is dry, and usually around 11.5% at $25/bottle it’s one of the best hidden gems in the wine world.
All Riesling.
German Riesling of course.
Hunter Valley Semillon too
Many Loire Cab Francs
Many Northern Rhones, some ABC wines, some Sandlands wines, many Arnot Roberts wines, some Pax wines - it’s a bit of a hodge podge out there, which is going to be a challenge when you choose an arbitrary number in all honesty.
Also, are you looking for wines to lay down and age, to drink now - what percentage of each?
Heck, I even make a number of wines under 13% but I’m certainly not known as a producer who does so . . .
Cheers,
Well, 13% is setting the bar quite high, so you would not have to be too restrictive: you could have pretty much any Bordeaux made in the last century, such as the 1982 Mouton at 11.49%. And even if it would be harder with new releases in Bordeaux and Burgundy, you could get e.g. any of Arnoux-Lachaux’s 2018s, which are all below 13%. So you could include plenty of blue chip classics from well-known appellations in France.
In terms of stuff that’s a bit further away from your cutoff point, and not including German prädikat wines with residual sugar, I’d look to the Savoie. We drink a lot of Ardoisières in the summer and it’s immensely refreshing.
Some early Forlorn Hope wines pulled in at less than 10%, and that’s pretty low for a dry wine.
Some of his recent whites have been 15%, so…
Riesling, riesling, riesling.
OP did specify reds, and I think most Ganevat’s Jura reds are below 13 still.
And of course, this all assumes folks are ‘honest’ about their wine labeling, too - including those overseas.
Cheers
A big assumption, I think. And it’s not even that people are lying for marketing purposes, but many just don’t want to redo labels year to year so they leave “12.5%” or something on there.
It’s surprising how many wine geeks see a European wine labeled 12.5% and think that is the alcohol level. All it really means is “somewhere between 11 and 14%.”
14.9% in Napa is starting to be that same thing. It just means “somewhere between 14% and 15.9%.”
Of course, many of the kinds of wineries we like do try to put actual numbers on each label, too.
Counselor, I would agree with you on Kutch, and in the same vein, Rhys. Both are in the 12-13% range (most of the time).
I’d vote too for Champagne. For me, one of the reasons I am so supportive of Champagne is because of the lower alcohol. This was in fact the first thing I thought of when I saw the topic.