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Pastimes : Winery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Savant who wrote (435)	1/8/2016 12:47:48 AM
From: sense	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 456

Not a whole lot to quibble with on the face of that... but... there is an issue or two lurking beneath it, that means the article first begins to expose the issues, but then sort of proceeds to miss the point... "People — on the whole — tend to favor wines that are less alcoholic" is pretty wildly incorrect... at least, it is not anywhere near the mark if what you're addressing is demonstrated consumer taste preferences rather than the consumer decisions that get made purely based on looking at the labels plastered on the bottles as they're sitting there on store shelves. Yours is a lot closer with: "lie....to placate the public's idea of what should be". I also agree with your stated preference: "I'm in favor of knowing the actual, not some made up number"... but, that still leaves a whole lot missing in terms of gaps in the larger task in communication that the label is intended to enable. (Or, not... as the article also underplays the impact of the generic "table wine" designation, essentially meaning any wine can be labeled as 12.5% as long as the variance from that number isn't too large. Then, they ignore the incredible bureaucracy involved in getting labels approved... which means its best not to change anything you don't have to on any previously approved label... no matter what changes in the contents of the bottles there are.) "Truth in labeling" would be a great place to start in addressing a number of large and still growing disconnects that exist between wine reality and wine marketing... but, you probably won't ever get to any bit of that without also reducing the surplus in the extant burden in the dysfunctional and over-weaning bureaucracy... who are probably even more defensive of their turf than the wine makers. The differences being addressed are still mostly borne of the conflicts that are intrinsic to conflicting consumer preferences (in taste, versus the numbers on labels)... which differences are then greatly exacerbated by the nature of the choices made in context of, if not quite because of the drivers that dominate, marketing. That consumers tend to prefer riper fruit flavors inside the bottle and lower alcohol numbers on the label... is only a part of the story. And, the "magic" in the numbers on the labels is only a smallish part of the story in terms of the "bait and switch" being practiced in wine making... or, at least, in wine labeling and marketing. The real problems that exist are a duality that splits between a viticulture problem on one hand, and wine quality concerns (and reality versus perception) on the other. It's not really an issue in terms of any wine making problems... rather than the opposite. Wine making and viticulture have both gotten a lot better over the last 40 years, and continue to improve, so that today even problematic fruit used as an input can be converted into perfectly palatable wines that most consumers will find appealing. Vineyards tending to be generally not overly portable means that wine "tends" to reflect the experience of the particular vineyard in a particular vintage... and then, of course, the wine makers choices... the dirty little secret being that a lot of non-European wine is grown in vineyards that are, certainly relative to Europe's, quite incredibly hot. The last thing existing producers want to be threatened with... is an expose revealing they're growing grapes "in the wrong place". So, they continue to push the envelope in using wine making to correct for the intrinsic deficiencies in the inputs they have to work with... driven by the unmentionable fact "they're growing the grapes in the wrong place". If you want to focus on the reality rather than the marketing schtick... look at the nature of the problems producers tend to have, and the solutions being applied to address them, rather than the stories they tell in marketing. That increasingly reduces to "wine quality issues" they'd rather avoid addressing (publicly), as the methods of compensating for overly hot vineyard conditions come in to play. One of those compromises made, of course, is to increase vine yields to slow and delay ripening... and the market reality is, most consumers really can't tell the difference, anyway, between a really good wine and basic high yield mid-market industrial plonk. Conflicts emerge there, again, between wine reality and what consumers demand... as what the consumers want is "the world's best wine"... for $13.99 a bottle, or less. And, often enough, they can be convinced easily enough by "more oak flavor"... even to the point that it makes the wine essentially undrinkable, while masking its inherent lack of quality. Or, otherwise, by increased extract, reduction to enhance fruit perception, etc. From there we could divert to a discussion of what quality really is... Or, we could re-focus on other aspects of the problem that does exist, and how it is being addressed on the wine making side... if you want to Google "spinning cone" technology... or want to start talking about how much water used in "cleaning the equipment"... ends up operating to reduce potential alcohol while converting water into wine by somewhat less than biblically correct methods. There's going to be another split that occurs in the market, there, too... between giant companies whose products are "made", in the worst sense of that word, using all the available tools while leaving nothing to chance... and the smaller producers who are limited to applying more traditional methods while hand crafting quality products by getting everything right in the first place, rather than by using technology (secretly) as a means of correcting for problems after the fact. The marketing schtick, of course, emphasizes the "romance" of vineyards and winemaking... when the reality for most larger volume producers is really all about industrial agriculture, and industrial processing, of what are essentially industrial products. Thanks for inducing the rant. I quite enjoyed spilling that here...

To: Savant who wrote (435)	2/26/2023 10:02:02 PM
From: sense	Respond to of 456

Meanwhile... 7 years later... Yeah, the article is not wrong in relation to the numbers... but, it is wrong in not quite fully and correctly connecting the dots... and wrong in attributing any "nefarious" intent... Winemakers typically respond to two primary concerns... They care what the critics (and thus also consumers) think of their products... and they care that what they do in the winery sustains compliance with the rules... The first problem there is that consumers might "say" they want to consume lower alcohol wines... but, that's not what they actually "demand"... either when perusing critics evaluations in making choices, or when tasting the wines themselves. But, for those who DO want that... there are brands that have adopted that feature that deliberately... to make reduced alcohol or even alcohol free products... but, which products, almost no one is going to mistake as that "great wine" that they want ? The Science Behind Nonalcoholic Win The article you posted gets that mostly right... that the "features" consumers want tend to come paired with "riper" fruit... while "riper" fruit, for the most part, requires grapes with higher sugars... and higher sugars means either higher alcohol wines, or wines with a higher residual sugar content. California has been, for a long time, trending along that line in consumers preferences... by producing wines with BOTH higher alcohol... and higher residual sugar levels in wines that are no longer "dry"... but creeping up toward 1% residual sugar. That's not my preference in wine... Not a huge fan of Cabs (etc.) with that sweet mid-palate and sweet cloying finish. It IS possible, still, to get "riper fruit' with lower alcohol... which you accomplish by growing grapes in cooler climates... where longer hang times with much less heat have grapes ripen a lot more slowly... and make "fruit" faster than "sugar"... but, with corresponding requirements imposed by the climactic difference. "Cool" vineyards... mean you can ripen only a fraction of the fruit you might ripen in a warmer site... so, probably, in the range from 2 (ideally) up to 4 tons to the acre... while in warmer sites you can get the same ripeness from fruit cropped at 8 to 12 tons to the acre, or more. So, you might choose to drink better quality "cooler site" wines from France, often with sugar added to get them up to 12% alcohol, and much higher natural acidity (which they're not allowed to add), rather than wines from (relatively) smoking hot vineyards in Napa or Sonoma, with 14.5% alcohol (even though not allowed to add sugar), with 1% residual sugar, and no acid at all... except for that they've added (which they are allowed to do) ? [ Naturally, the rules are different in different places... to disallow you from doing that which you have no real need for... while criticizing competitors for doing it.] But, most consumers don't want to know any of that... and they aren't expert tasters... they just know what they like, and want to be allowed to like it without over-thinking what that is. That means both that they like those features paired with higher alcohol... but, also, that they don't trust themselves too far in judging wine quality, so "like" what they're told is good by Wine Spectator... or, whichever critic or review they follow as best matching their own preferences. And, beyond that, what you think is "good"... depends on where you are. Frenchmen generally prefer "fruitier" in terms of European wines, with higher acidity. American's prefer "fruitier" in American terms... and many actively dislike wines with higher acidity. But, its a big market... and you can find a bit of everything, everywhere... if you know where to look. Then, as much as they might try to deny it... the critics also bear a lot of responsibility... because the tyranny of the 100 point scale determines quite a lot about what wine makers can do, or want to do. And, in the work they do, as in other "tasting events"... one of the truisms that is when you're tasting a lot of wines, that one "just like the others" but with a little bit higher alcohol... is like that one stalk of wheat with its head poking up a couple of inches higher than all the others in the field. It gets noticed. Tasting... generates more of that bias that already exists... as an artifact in work of making the comparison. As far as "global warming is causing higher alcohol wines"... ? Mostly... total bullshit. The alcohol in the wine is a function of the wine maker deciding... telling the grower... when she wants the fruit picked. Warmer, longer growing seasons... usually called "great vintages"... will "allow" accumulating higher sugars in grapes... but, that means nothing, does nothing, to alter the part that matters... which is the wine maker making the call on when to proceed in picking the grapes. That's a complex decision... lots of factors considered... but almost ZERO of that is going to be about "lets work to make a wine with more alcohol"... rather than "let's shoot for optimal fruit quality, and balance"... as that is defined by wine makers, aware of both "the potential in a grape," their own take on wine quality, and both "critics" and "market preferences". It would be easy to make wines with far higher alcohol than most do have... but, then, the market only demands so much of that fruitless $10 a bottle >14% alcohol cough syrup ? The other issue... "compliance"... is as they noted... about a couple of different things. Taxes is one of them... as a wine that bumps "just" over the bracket limits... gets itself bumped up into a higher tax bracket. So, yes, there are (used to be) more than a few wines that might report containing 14.0%... rather than 14.1%... to avoid that tax bump. And,it is also true that the rules, both as written, and as enforced, are pretty "flexible" in how you report the alcohol content... not really requiring that degree of precision. Read a lot of labels, and you might find a whole lot of wines reporting 12.5% (the generic value)... or 14% (the generic limit)... in a proportion that is hardly probable... But, given rules that (did) exist... ? Only, the rules can change... the link from about two years after our posts... And, whatever it is today... it is what it is... ? The one useful bit in that first link worth noting... is that boutique / quality producers aren't really impacted by it at all... as a tax issue. As a quality producer, you mostly won't make wine-making decisions based on that tax concern... but, as they note, either the big boys who do care about the tax issue, will "remove alcohol"... as is done by large producers in California... or, "add water" as smaller producers might... as both are quick ways to get there... only, with both of them largely destructive of wine quality. Note in the second link... the tax credit also changed... so ? There's really not any linkage that exists between "the taxes"... and "wine quality concerns"... much less "truth in labeling concerns... with the impact of the tax structure being mostly destructive of wine quality... So, what's a consumer to do ? Smaller producers will mostly be happy to talk to you about their wines... what they seek to make in them, etc., more even than you want to know. Find smaller quality focused producers you trust, who are willing to speak truth... while selecting those working in growing regions where "what you like" tends to be what they make anyway... because that's what happens where they are growing grapes and making wines. Deal with them directly... and add a relationship to your life, rather than another trip to the grocery store, to puzzle over the incomprehensible selection. And, at some threshold in larger scale... producers will be happy to connect you to their marketing department. Large producers, still... pick any big name producer in California... they're mostly all using the "alcohol reduction" technology... a dirty little secret called "the spinning cone"... the same as that noted in the Smithsonian article as giving alcohol free wines. They don't want you to know that use it to reduce the alcohol in their wines... because the wines that result are both less than they should be... and, they are really no longer "wines made by fermenting grapes... that reflect the qualities the grapes contained"... but are wines made by removing alcohol and other volatile compounds from wine... then putting some volatile compounds back... which may or may not be exactly the same as the ones removed... ie, they have about as much of the romance of the vineyard in them... as a glass of Kool-aid served in a vineyard.