It appears Ridge is no longer including the % of water additions to their wines. For many years, they would include the exact percentage on the label. Now they just list “water addition.”
Old:
New:
the order of ingredients is different in each example. is the order of ingredients relevant?
I believe on food products, the ingredients are listed in order of amount from greatest to smallest. Maybe the water addition was small enough to be viewed as inconsequential.
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I would guess you’re right, though, since wine ingredient disclosures aren’t mandated, I doubt there are any legal rules.
Assuming it’s the order by quantity, it’s interesting that yeast comes second and that malolactic bacteria is above SO2.
What’s the ABV on the 2022 Rockpile? Maybe if the fruit wasn’t too ripe, there wasn’t much need to water back.
OMG… did you see on the SanLorenzo… they labeled it as “tartaic acid”. One more piece of evidence that mighty Ridge is going down the tubes!! Reason enough to quit buying Ridge!!
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The 2022 Rockpile isn’t on the Ridge website yet. Where’d you get the label?
I thought it was odd that they added the percent of water at all. They don’t add quantities for any of the other ingredients. Maybe when it was 1% they wanted to give the impression that it wasn’t very much? But adding water is a common practice for grapes that have become slightly dehydrated on the vine, very normal and TTB-approved.
The abv on the finished wine will not be representative of how much water was added without having the pre-add abv #.
Sometimes water is used to top barrels. Since barrels dissipate water in the aging process.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the EU does not allow wines to be ‘watered down’. I understand the idea behind it but I still don’t like it.
What is the rationale on banning addition of water? Concern about what’s in the water?
I’m a less is more type guy.
RichardFlack
What is the rationale on banning addition of water? Concern about what’s in the water?
Whatever the TTB may allow, I believe that California law only allows water adds before fermentation. In theory, that’s allowed to compensate for dehydrated grapes.
I think the restriction – and the ban in the EU – come out of quality concerns; dilution might just increase quantities at the cost of quality. Same reason irrigation is banned in many EU appellations.
But in practice I understand water adds are very often in California so fruit can be picked very late to achieve a certain flavor profile. Water may need to be added to the must so the fermentation doesn’t stick (because high sugar levels could push alcohol levels high enough to kill off the yeast). But I’ve also heard that some wineries add water after fermentation to bring down the alcohol.
Listing the percentage could be confusing to consumers because a 1% water addition would only bring the ABV down by 0.07% or so (assuming ~14% natural ABV) because the ratio of water to alcohol is about ~7:1. Adding 1% to a 16% wine would only bring it down to 15.86%.
If a wine would naturally ferment to 16% ABV, you’d have to add almost 5% water to bring it down to 15%.
You can certainly see why wineries wouldn’t want to say they extended their expensive wine by diluting it 5% with water.
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Right! While I’m sure someone out there is adding water after fermentation, I don’t think it is a common practice. Everyone I’ve ever seen who’s done a water add is doing it to grapes at crush to compensate for dehydration in the vineyard. As you say, that’s the legal context in California.
In terms of bringing down alcohol after fermentation, regardless of the legal side of things, adding water is a pretty unattractive prospect from a quality perspective because it dilutes flavor pretty substantially if you want to have a material impact on ABV, so partial dealcoholization of a lot is commonly preferred.
These days it’s pretty uncommon to see ferments sticking because of high alcohols around here. I think California winemakers have got pretty good at managing that.
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I’m not sure we disagree. But, to be clear, I think a lot of dehydration is due to conscious choices about picking late for a flavor profile, not to compensate for a quirk of the vintage. The late picking means less juice in the grapes and more sugar.
Yup, agreed
Some thin skinned grape varieties, like Pinot Noir, can shrivel quickly in a heat wave. That’s where a water add is restoring balance. Shrivel in Cab on a large scale is intentional. Shrivel in Cab down here is an occasional rare cluster, and usually sorted out. (They usually taste different, from riper flavors to raisin. A small amount of riper in the mix is a winemaker choice. Excluding raisin is quality control.)
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