If a wine from the US is imported into Canada, you’ll have an answer - they test EVERY wine in Canada by a government run lab, I believe - where in the US, it’s rarely ever ‘checked’ - and usually when it’s a large producer who is trying to sneak into a lower tax class . . .
Cheers
Depends on the varietal!
Also on the terroir, so take everything below with both a grain of salt and with vast exceptions.
Grenache: 15%
Syrah: 14%
Carignan: 13+%
Pinot Noir: 13%
Cabernet Sauvignon: 12+%
Merlot: 14%
Nebbiolo: 13%
Aghioritiko: 14+%
Sangiovese: 12+%
Xynomavro: 13%
Tempranillo: 13%
Bobal: 14%
Saperavi: 13%
Mourvedre: 14%
Your mileage guaranteed to vary. Please forgive my not quoting levels for Plavac Mali, Ruby Cabernet and Negroamaro.
Dan Kravitz
If a wine from the US is imported into Canada, you’ll have an answer - they test EVERY wine in Canada by a government run lab, I believe - where in the US, it’s rarely ever ‘checked’ - and usually when it’s a large producer who is trying to sneak into a lower tax class . . .
Cheers
Larry isn’t there a 1% variance on the actual alcohol percent in the US?
I also hate the concept that a number should determine ‘balance’ - some many wine consumers look at a label and ‘pre-suppose’ based on that number - and I see it all the time.
As some have pointed out, this really needs to be played out by variety. As Adam said, look at syrah - it is a chameleon of a grape that can produce stunning examples from 12%-16%. You may have a ‘preference’ based on profile - per.haps Northern Rhone at lower levels or SQN at the upper end. Which is ‘better’? Totally subjective . . .
Zin is another variety that is a bit ‘controversial’. To me, there needs to be enough ripeness to bring out certain characteristics I really like in the variety - and that is not gonna happen at 12 or 13%. Can the wine still be ‘interesting’? Of course - but will it remind me of ‘zinfandel’? Not really.
The same is true with Grenache. Sorry, but a 12% Grenache really does not have the ‘grenache’ characteristics I dig in the variety. No - it does not need to be 16% for that to happen, but at 12%, I’d be hard pressed to pick it out as ‘grenache’. It still might be ‘enjoyable’ but not showing the ‘typicity’ that the variety naturally brings to the table.
And me to me, that’s the key - does it ‘taste’ and ‘smell’ like the variety as you expect it to be? Now to some folks a ‘typical’ syrah or Grenache will be a SQN or Alban and to others it will be a Gonon . . .
Carry on all . . .
What else is a customer supposed to do?
Not make assumptions?
And I’ll repeat once again, bad assumption. Really don’t care what people believe, simply pointing out that MANY drink MISLABELED wines and automatically assume their beliefs. I implore you, and so many other self appointed ‘experts’, to listen to David Ramsey’s really great interview. Pay lots of attention. Not a secret to many of us in the industry with access to labs and equipment, but still eye opening to us when consumers refuse to listen and simply go by their “beliefs”, FACTS be damned. Believe whatever it is you want to believe, just do not assume you’re actually drinking 12-13% alc wines only because a label says so. You seem to forget that RO was developed in France, FOR A REASON, though seemingly unable to put the 2 and 2 together. As one example.
I spent a good amount of time observing those on the interwebs claiming they hate oak. And then pretty consistently go for an oak heavy bottles in a blind tasting.
I understand that my views are not “popular” on this board, as they weren’t on Parker’s, but, well, reality sucks. And I’ve seen a good number of professionals in wine business refuse to participate in blind tastings. Simply personal observations on subjects of alcohol and oak based on real world facts and experience.
Heck, one board denizen is not only guilty of greatly misstating alc numbers for years both here and in EU, but then once called a wine, deliberately picked at 32-33Brix year in and year out, as one having a great balance. As I said, believe whatever it is you want. Just do not assume that those who know have to go along, not should stay silent. I see plenty of reviews, both for domestics and imported, mention DARK FRUIT while finishing with a “great low alc under 12-13% bottle!”. Yeah, right. I’ve seen high 15s, Ramey tests way more and mentions 16+, and I believe that.
Balance is the only measurement, everything else means absolutely nothing.
As I get older, harder and harder to drink anything above 13.5%, so ideally ABV for wines should fall between 12% to 13.5%.
I beg to differ and most likely many a producer in, say, Terra Alta would do that as well. That’s one of the highest regions in Catalonia and a hotspot for Garnatxa Negra (Grenache) and Garnatxa Blanca (Grenache Blanc). There they normally pick the grapes at perfect maturity in early-to-mid October and they are most certainly full of classic Grenache characteristics, but often the wines are clocking (or at least used to clock) at 12-13%. I haven’t had the wines for some time now, so I don’t know if they are having problems with the temperatures as well.
So I guess a Grenache grown in regions like Southern Rhône (or many places in the US) must be picked at 14,5-15% to be varietally correct and those picked earlier are just too unripe or lacking correct flavor precursors. However, in different climates Grenache can thrive and produce wonderful, fresh wines that are modest in alcohol yet very true to the variety. I remember tasting one “super” Garnatxa back in Terra Alta that clocked at 14% ABV and it tasted like a gloopy, overripe mess to me.
Deleted.
Lol for me it’s the opposite. Although I prefer lower-alcohol wines, I have no problems drinking wines up to 17% if they just can handle it.
However, I don’t consider Bordeaux being capable of handling high alcohol. If it’s 14%, I’m getting wary and if it’s 14,5% I steer clear. Can’t remember many 14,5% Bordeaux reds I would have honestly enjoyed.
There are a number of posts regarding the US rules on page 1 of the thread. That being said, 14% is a break point in US taxation and tariff classes.
Alcohol levels are an important consideration for me in buying a wine. I won’t touch 15+, prefer 12.5 or 13, but some right bank Bordeaux have been pulling me above the 14% level more than I previously preferred. I don’t believe the “doesn’t matter as long as it’s balanced” mantra, higher alcohol makes for a different experience
Eric’s points about higher level alcohols seems important to me intuitively. Some high-alcohol wines give me a very different experience in kind of a non-linear way in terms of physical effects and I wonder if it could be in part due to the chemically different alcohols. There difference in “higher” alcohols could be much greater than the difference in ABV on the label
There seems to be a couple of different themes floating around.
The last three points are certainly worth understanding. For example, the claim above that Shafer tends to label everything with an ABV of 14.9% might explain my surprise at detecting a lot of heat on the finish of the 2005 and 2007 Shafer Hillside Selects. However, so long as higher ABV on a label is positively correlated with my perception of alcohol on the finish, I will continue to place some weight on the ABV labels. And, I will stop buying wines for which I perceive a disconnect between the ABV and my enjoyment of the wine. Not sure what else I can do.
It’s a bit of a messy issue I think, and variations in labelling don’t help. If you’re able to talk to a winemaker, or better yet charm the enologist or a lab tech, and ask about their labeling practices, you may get more candid information than you expect. Some wineries make a point of labelling their wines accurately, while others basically subtract 1% from the lowest value they get and so significantly under-report. But you can’t exactly look up which ones do and which don’t, so “14.5%” on a label is, to the general consumer, a pretty useless number.
For those of us on this board, who spend a lot of time tasting, drinking, and learning about wine, I think the number on the bottle is even less significant, because many of us will be buying wines from wineries we have already researched, visited, or tasted from, or heard reliable information from a friend/fellow Berserker about the house style, which should reveal more about how likely we are to like a wine and find it balanced than the abv on the label.
I agree with what many have said above: that balance is more important than alcohol content. And I think what Otto was saying about location is also important. I tend to like my Sonoma County Zins at 14 to low 15s and generally find that lower-alcohol versions from the same area, even if well farmed and well made, are not to my taste, while higher alcohol contents there tend to be too hot for my palate. But I’ve had high-15s/low-16s Zins from Howell Mountain that tasted correct to me, even if they were a little potent for my day-to-day taste, and I’m sure there are areas that would produce good Zin below 14. There is so much more to ripeness and balance than sugar a.k.a. potential alcohol.
The one thing I do look for is <14% labelling on good Cabernet Sauvignon, because both my wife and I tend to like greener, fresher Cabs, and I have found that, in Napa and its surrounds, that legally defined boundary can be a good filter for improving our odds of finding what we’re looking for. I’ve tasted a lot of Cabernet Sauvignon with >15.5% alcohol and, though some of them have been mightily delicious, they have almost all been too alcoholic for me to really want to drink more than half a glass.
I don’t think it was a different story in Rioja until recent hotter vintages, but it’s hard to be certain since Garnacha was traditionally a blending grape and not much info available about ABV for particular grapes in a Tempranillo dominated blend. It wasn’t until more recently that typical alcohol levels started to rise.
100% Garnachas that started to become fashionable in the mid to late 1990s I believe typically clocked in at around 13-14.5. Not wines I was ever interested in. But that was also the period that high ripeness was a trend in Spanish wines. It’s hard to separate style and intent from possibility and potential.
I don’t understand why the US won’t do this, as you think alcohol amounts would be an important metric (for dieters, etc.) to know.
And don’t bring up the cost argument. If wineries can afford glass that weighs a couple of pounds, they can afford to test alcohol levels.
completely agree on the grape. i just have no interest in wines at 14.5%+ but have enjoyed a Ridge wine now and then.
my big issue is that high alcohol makes it impossible to enjoy southern rhone. i was in cdp in 2019 with my wife and had an excellent dinner in gigondas…and i just ordered a bottle of burgundy. i just find the wines too high in alcohol to enjoy. ive never had rayas but steer me to producers that either have lower alcohol or can balance it out.
i also find i cant enjoy valpolicella and amarone either for similar reasons.
Weird. While Amarones are always very high in alcohol, a Valpolicella typically clocks at 12 to 13,5% ABV.
Unless you find some freak outliers, it’s very hard to find a normal Valpolicella red that would be 14% or above.
Rayas is pricey. Fonsalette less so. Charvin is probably a good place to start. But I’m with you, and I personally stay away from CdP these days.