on wine (7) too much alcohol

Recently I read some wine critic (forgot his name) making a wish (as an aside) that winemakers would stop making wines that put people to sleep after 2 glasses. Amen! It reminded me of a remark of Colette's 90-year old father who disliked the fact that even his local (Provence) wines were mostly 13 and 13.5% and were less pleasantly young than the same wines - as he remembered - of only a few years before. The critic's wish made me think about a problem I recently had with distinguishing between some of the best wines like Barolo, Brunello and top burgundies, that I attributed to having lost both my appetite and my taste as a result of months of painkillers and anti-biotics (see On Wine #6). For me it's not so much that wines of 13.5 or even 14% put me to sleep - 12% will do that at my age - but I have come to believe that the higher the %, the more wines begin to taste the same and in their heaviness they loose their individuality, i.e. the character of their terroir, the refinement of their different aromas and the lasting pleasures of the varied aspects of the bouquet that used to linger on the tongue. It is also quite possible that the sameness of the wines we drank is a "by product"(?) of winemakers studying wine making at research universities where they all learn what chemicals to use in the vineyard and which in the cellar so that the end product will taste as similar as the grape varieties permit. In his amusing (and disturbing) book The Good Wines and the Others (1984) which concentrates on the 1970s and before, Pierre-Marie Doutrelant makes the point that winemakers raise the alcohol level of their wines (often fraudulently) to give them stability which makes them last longer and travel better. Real scary is his report of a wine tasting of syrah in California where one of the wines contained 17% alcohol! [addendum, 10-14-12 Today's NYT Mag. had an article about an e-mail wine merchandiser whose big thing is selling wines that have been manipulated as little as possible. One of the things that caught my eye was a sidebar protesting high alcoholic content with a preference of 12.5 to 13.5% for reds and one degree less for whites. Amen! Another point in his diatribe against additives etc. was his mention of color enhancers, which as a fact was new to me though I had often been worried at the dark color of some wines, especially the cheaper Italian ones, but recently I found even traditionally lighter colored reds from the Cote Chalonnaise in Burgundy almost as dark as northern Cote de Nuits wines which I ascribed to a longer exposure to the red skins of the grapes, but now . . .?]

I checked some of my diaries and found few 13.5+% wines until 2007, which may be the result of not having bought any by chance. Most of the very good wines drunk in those years were on the average 8 years old; the great burgundies from single vineyards and outstanding years were 10 years or older, the reds mostly 13% and the whites (5 years or older) 12.5%. By chance I came across my 1978 diary and there I found the label of a 1973 Hermitage of only 12,5% and several like the Arthur Barolet 1969 Beaune-Bressandes with "alcohol 11 to 14% by volume," which the same company also put on their 1971 Moulin-a Vent; it also appears on the label of a '71 Ch. Beausejour from Pomerol as well as on a '76 Fleurie. A '71 Ch. Petrus, one of the very greatest bordeaux was only 12% which we found still too young even though it came in half bottles and thus should have matured sooner; there was also a '67 Ch. Gruaud-Larose at 12% that we found "very good" and a '66 Ch. Pontet Canet, while several lesser bordeaux were only 11.5%. Surprisingly we also had a Baudet '76Fleurie at 13.4% we found "hard at room temp." and "used most of it for a boeuf bourguignon." Apparently we did not drink much burgundy that year, but a '69 Beaune Dne de Saux, a 1st growth, at 13% that was so-so during a July heat wave. These lower alcohol bottles of wines that are usually kept for a long time and exported all over the world seem to go against the argument that more alcohol stabilizes the wine, make it last longer and allow it to travel. Perhaps that works out well for regional wines that formerly were mostly drunk young and more or less locally and once they started to raise the %, the entire crowd followed their example even where it obviously served no other purpose than to keep up with "the market." I am actually rather surprised that Waverly Root, in his Food of Italy (1972), mentions numerous local wines of little merit with an alcoholic content between 11 and 13%, some even higher. Unfortunately he doesn't specify whether the difference pertains to different growers or different years. My own memory is that local bottles on my travels in the 1950s did not have the % on the label but I remember one bar in Morey St Denis that had a list of wines chalked on the mirror: gros rouge , bourgogne, Morey, blanc, each with their price by the glass and per liter bottle that I, like several villagers, had filled. I had no idea of the % but drank my bottle with a couple of rustic ham sandwiches and hiked on for the rest of the afternoon. 

Before the summer of 2010 my taste was still fine and even my prone-to-sinus-infection nose functioned pretty well. I stopped smoking in 2000, except for the short summer stays in France and thus stopped completely after April of 2006. And of course there were the comments by the usually very healthy (and long term non-smoking) Colette whose nose is very sensitive and trained by the orchard fresh fruit aromas of her Provence. Among the to me negative comments of those years, the most frequent is "tar" and "liquorice." Aromas were "subtle" and mostly "roses" or "raspberries," or "light," the bouquet as "lasting" or "complex" of "red fruits" with no after taste of wood. By comparison the modern 14% reds with their slow and heavy robe have not called for "subtle" and their aroma did not provoke a "roses" or "berries." The very good burgundy chardonnays, a few also with 13% alcohol were praiseworthy, but none of them "fruity" or "refreshing" like Sancerres or Muscadets S.& M. the latter being mostly 12%. Partly as a result of their price, we have begun to drink more Pinot Grigios from the Aldige and Trentino that tend to be crisp and dry, even when older, with none of the sweetness of the Veneto P.G.s. unfortunately, the latest Grigio, a 2009 from Friuli, a good year, is less fruity at 13%. One wine we are currently enjoying is a Joseph Drouhin 2009 Beujolais Villages (more honestly "beaujolais" than any Duboeuf) that also was much approved by my discriminating daughter. When we were discussing it at table and mentioned the high alcohol problem my son picked up the bottle to check and found it was 12,5%. Hooray! And the day before we had a 2010 Sancerre Dne des Perrieres from 2010 that was on sale. Though a lesser year, everyone appreciated its crisp dryness ("drinks like water") and its hint of new apples. It was 12,5%. While we were in Maine this August (2011) we were restricted by the surprisingly limited choice of European wines available in the local supermarket; surprising because it was located in a very affluent summer boating resort. We drank some very pleasant reds from Italy, France and Spain, all 2009s, but the preferred wine was a 2006 Hoya de Cadenas (about which I wrote in an earlier blog), a tempramillo from west of Valentia (Spain). We bought a one or two bottles each short shopping trip and they must have had a case, for we drank 7 bottles and then the supply was gone; it was also only 12.5%.

No doubt, the prize for excellence goes to a 1999 Santenay "gravieres" from Prosper Maufoux (a winemaker from which I drank many bottles in the 80s, but who is now a rare find) that both my son and Colette at a recent dinner, spontaneously remarked on as of superior quality and it was not until the end of the meal that Colette picked up the bottle and noticed that the wine was only 11%!!! She picked it up because she recalled theatre trips to N.Y. with lunch or dinner at The Pyrenees when Santenay was so much our favorite burgundy that Marcel, the waiter, kept some bottles from the best years for our two monthly visits. This bottle had a splendid color, no hint of brown when poured, a light aroma and robe with a good berry bouquet and only a slight hint of licorice at the end. All that after 12 years in a non-perfect cellar and with only 11%.

Having found no merits justifying 14% alcohol, I wonder why they are made other than for the reason suggested earlier. I am suspicious that they are made to appeal to modern drinkers that increasingly drink beer or hard liquor (no doubt encouraged by the such hard drinking detectives in the books by Ian Rankin or Andrea Camillieri), even before dinner, which reduces the ability to appreciate subtle differences in taste through their dulling effects (which also affects the alcoholic wines, of course). And the higher level of alcohol also obscures the factors that make wine unappealing to the young when they get their first taste. None of my grandchildren like wine, not even champagne and make faces when they try even a small taste. It's more than probable that all drinks, other than water make modern people prefer the "sweetness" that comes from the higher % (and aging in new oak).

These "sad" thoughts were strengthened by an insert in the New York Times of Sunday 7/16/11, announcing offerings by the NYT wine Club with the headline "Summer is all about fun . . . so grad a glass of wine and enjoy." One of the benefits is: "Drink superb wines, carefully selected by experts." The seduction is a selection of 6 bottles, 4 red and 2 whites for $69,95. One of the whites is a 2009Simmonet-Febvre Chablis, one of the reds is a simple 2008 chianti and another a 2007 Cotes de Roussillon "fruity blend." Six bottles for $70, is a steal but except for the Chablis these wines are nothing to write home about and except for the one 2009, the other years are average, in particular the 2008s. Another selection, also of 6 bottles, at 139.95 (regular price 199.95), includes a 2006 Star Lane, Bordeaux blend, 2006 was a good year, but "blend" is superfluous as traditional bordeaux are always a blend of mostly 3 grapes, though on the poorly reproduced label this bottle lists Cabernet Sauvignon on the label, which would indicate that it is not a blend, unless it is a blend of one variety from different growers, none of which are bottling their own wines or send wines not fit for their own bottling to some bottler, the way California jug wines were made; the name "Star Lane" being a likely indication. But even in California the jug wine has gone the way of the straw bottle Chianti and a new generation of Gallos advertise their better bottles to attract drinkers with higher incomes. I wonder also about the NYT "experts;" if they are the columnists they must have said "for this price" these wines are what one should expect, rather than "among the wines that I prefer, these are good daily drinking."

Its all rather disappointing.