The Tuscan red I picked up the other day listed 15% alcohol. Whoa! That, as the saying goes, “ain’t natural.” But does this potent dose hurt the wine?
This is hardly a new question in a time when few people deny the reality that Earth’s climate is warming and that we face unknown global consequences, many of them much more serious than wine with unnaturally high levels of alcohol.
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Here’s a Tuscan red with 15% alcohol! Would you be wary? Would you blame climate change?
But to the extent that wine can be like the traditional canary in a coal mine for those of us who pay attention to it, increasing alcoholic punch attributed to warmer weather has been a subject for discussion since before we rolled into the 21st century.
“Many wines are creeping upward in alcohol content,” I wrote in a February 2002 column, over 23 years ago. “As recently as the 1980s, it was unusual to see a red wine much over 13 percent alcohol, with whites lagging a percentage point or so behind. … But some wines nowadays seem to start at 14 percent and go up from there.”
That trend has only continued. As I wrote in a more recent column (September 18, 2020), “fine wine has been pointing to some kind of climate evolution for quite a few years, in the form of increasing alcohol levels and ripeness in vineyard regions that have marked gradually higher average temperatures since before the turn of the last century.”
“Premium wine grapes can only be grown in places that support a delicate balance of heat and precipitation … Fine wine production is likely to shift due to climate change,” according to Climate Change & Wine resources from ClimateCentral.org.
Environmental temperature, of course, is intimately related to alcohol levels. It’s a simple matter of wine chemistry: Warmer weather pushes grapes to greater ripeness, which means they contain more sugar. When the crushed grapes are fermented to dryness, the additional sugar is converted to more alcohol content. Riper fruit, more sugar, higher alcohol: The equation is simple and direct.
This has not gone unnoticed in Italian vineyards, or in Italian universities where scientists study such matters. “In the wine industry, one of the direct consequences of [climate change] is the increased alcohol content of wines,” scientists Vincenzo Gerbi and Camilla De Paolis wrote in “The effects of climate change on wine composition and winemaking processes” in the Italian Journal of Food Science earlier this year.
The study is long and technical – you can read it in full at this link – but its key finding estimated that a 50% increase in alcohol levels in globally produced wines during the past decade is related to climate change. The authors argue that this development represents a problem not only for technical wine-making aspects but also for market trends: “From an oenological point of view, ethanol interacts with different wine compounds, thus modifying sensory profile, reducing fruity notes, and amplifying unpleasant notes such as bitterness and astringency.”
Ick. That’s not appetizing. But is it a fatal flaw in every wine? Port and Sherry and other fortified wines often reach 20% alcohol, and no one matters at all. Some trophy-level Zinfandels, blockbuster Shiraz and Syrah, and even some California Pinot Noirs easily exceed the 14% level once assumed as the upper end of the range for quality table wines. The industry has blown through that barrier.
Still, a 15% Tuscan red came as a surprise. Perhaps that’s because 2023 “Ateo” Sant’Antimo Rosso is an excellent yet offbeat item with a history of poking its thumb in the eye of conventional wisdom. That starts with its name, “Ateo” (“Ah-tay-oh”), meaning “Atheist.”
Its producer, Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona, chose the edgy moniker back in 1989, when a poor Sangiovese vintage jeopardized the winery’s plan to produce its traditional Brunello di Montalcino. Instead, they created what can only be described as a Tuscan-accented Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot-Sangiovese blend instead of Brunello that year. It was popular, so they do it again any year when there’s a low or less satisfactory Sangiovese crop.
Now it’s Cab and Merlot without any Sangiovese at all, and its high alcohol level plus time resting in oak casks makes it a wine that’s, well, perhaps not for everyone. Still, it justifies a price in the lower $20s with intensity, balance, and a presence that should fare well over five to 10 years of cellar time.
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