Feature Article

Is the alcohol percentage in wine coming down?

Alcohol percentages noted on lablels seem to be dropping after rising for many years.

Goldfarb’s Pressing Matters
Are Hot Wines Getting “Warm”?

Alcohol levels in U.S. wines have increased in the past decade. Look on the shelf of any wine store to see the evidence, as alcohol percentages noted on labels commonly stay above 14 percent. But those numbers seem to be coming down now. Well, maybe.

by Alan Goldfarb
December 21, 2006

It is a belief held in some winemaker and wine writer circles that high alcohol wines make for unbalanced wines. With that in mind, I’ve been monitoring the alcohol levels of Napa Valley red wines that have come my way over this past year. According to technical notes and the alcohol percentages listed on labels of well over a hundred wines, nearly 20 percent of those wines state that the alcohol percentages are under 14 percent. From the hundreds of wines I have seen in the recent past with over 14 percent alcohol, this marks a palpable sea change.

There’s been lots of chatter about “hangtime” or prolonged maturation of grapes, a topic promulgated by certain growers and thereby fostered by a small cadre of wine writers – yours truly among them. Thus, if my very informal survey is any indication, we may be witnessing the beginning of a trend that will see alcohol levels drop over the next few vintages.

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