Wine:The high alcohol content of many wines is becoming a talking point among consumers, writes Joe Breen.
Wine, both the best and the stuff we most often drink, can be a simple pleasure. But there is constant challenge behind the scenes as winemakers grapple with issues such as the debate over higher alcohol content and the controversial use of oak and substitutes. Both subjects, which have a huge bearing on the liquid in your glass, were discussed at two recent seminars in Dublin.
Jacques Lurton, scion of one of Bordeaux's most powerful winemaking dynasties (his father Andre Lurton owns many leading chateaux) has acted as a consultant for many wineries around the world, as well as building and owning wineries in southern and southwest France, Spain, Chile and Argentina. He told a Dublin gathering that there were a number of reasons for higher alcohol levels in wines today. Global warming was inevitably mentioned, but he said the "almost obsessive hunt" for full phenolic maturity among winemakers had also led to increased alcohol as they tended to leave fruit on the vine for longer periods in order to increase ripeness.
The hunt has also led to a later harvest - when he was a child, harvesting was completed before returning to school; now it was done one month later. The result, he said, was easier tannins and more complex wines with increased alcohol which made wines easier to drink. With these wines, he said, there was often some residual sweetness left, and the alcohol itself gave a sense of sweetness. And, he warned, where there was no residual sweetness, some entry-level wines, and indeed some higher up the price ladder, were being adjusted to offer rounder, softer wines that are easier to drink, especially for the novice.
However, he said the trend now was to reduce alcohol. "People are beginning to ask for wines with levels of perhaps 12.5 per cent to 13.5 instead of the beefy 14s and 15s." Lurton also mentioned he had a preference for screw-caps, but believed that consumer acceptance was still low in mainland Europe and the Americas. He also said that Argentine wines were improving in quality and that their vines were well planted. In contrast, Chile, he said, needs to replant, move closer to the sea and plant on slopes to get better quality.
Francisco Baettig did not echo that suggestion, but then he works for leading Chilean winery Errázuriz. The theme for his seminar was Separating the Wood from the Trees, and it examined the role of oak in winemaking. That might seem a subject more likely to separate the anoraks from the rest of us, but this was a scholarly and fascinating trawl through the history, science and economics of wood and wine.
Among Baettig's observations were the following:
The use of barrels to enhance the quality of the wines started by accident thanks to their use for transporting wine.
The contribution of barrels to the quality of wine differs in a significant way according to the botanic and geographical origin of the oak and to forest management (American versus French, for example).
The use of oak is key to the quality of wines, but the proportion (barrel proportion/size, new versus used), origin (French versus American), ageing (length), and cooper style (the degree of "toast" achieved in the making of the barrel) has to be in perfect tuning with the type of the wine.
In other words, getting wood to work is no simple matter. jbreen@irish-times.ie