BALANCING ACT

With climate change causing alcohol levels to climb, it's time to reasses how we think about the abv of our bottle – wine lovers and winemakers alike

- STORY ANDREW JEFFORD

Take two growing seasons: 1961 and 2010. Take two red wines, the kind that most of us only get to dream about, from those vintages: Château Latour and Penfolds Grange. Compare.

Latour 2010 (considered one of the greatest Médoc wines of the 21st century) contains 14.4% alcohol by volume (abv); Grange 2010 (5 stars and 99 points from The Vintage Journal) has 14.5%. Latour 1961 (lavished with perfect scores aplenty) has... 12.3%; Grange 1961 is at 12.7%. Grange ’62, regarded as a finer wine than the ’61, is even lower at just 12.2%.

Stranger still, written tasting notes suggest similarly styled wines. ‘Rich and voluminous,’ reads The Vintage Journal tasting note on the 12.2% Grange ’62, while Latour ’61 was (as noted by Robert Parker in June 2000) ‘Port-like, with an unctuous texture... full-bodied, voluptuous’. Michael Broadbent called it (in 1999) a ‘mammoth wine’. Rich and voluminous - at 12.2%! Voluptuous and mammoth - at 12.3%! Grange 2010, less surprisingly, is described as ‘a powerhouse’ (James Suckling, 100 points, 2014 note), while Latour 2010 is ‘a liquid skyscraper in the mouth’ (Robert Parker, 100 points, 2013 note).

That grinding gear-change in alcohol level, echoed universally around the wine world, is our subject. Alcohol levels in wine have risen significantly over the last half-century. Why has it happened, how do we feel about it and what are we doing about it?

The factors at play