Rethinking high-alcohol table wines
If you want to make me crabby, talk about rising wine alcohol levels. Wait! Please don’t. But now I’m rethinking my bad attitude. What’s up with that?
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I think I can see the point when my attitude started to mellow, at least a little. Last summer, in my column “Warmer climate, warmer wine, I came on full grumpy: “The Tuscan red I picked up the other day listed 15% alcohol,” I wrote, adding “Whoa! That, as the saying goes, ‘ain’t natural’.” But since then, things have been changing and I’ve been rethinking.”
Rising alcohol levels in wine regions around the world are intimately wedded to rising environmental temperature, and this has been a subjecct of wine-geek discussion and debate for a while.
Peasants Carousing in a Tavern (1630s), oil painting on panel by the Dutch artist Adriaen Brouwer (c.1605-1638). Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
“It’s a simple matter of wine chemistry,” I wrote in this June 20, 2025 column. “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.”
And it’s something wine experts see as a flaw. Over-ripening in unaccustomed heat yields grapes that make highly alcoholic wines with too much fruit and too little acidity, lacking the ideal balance that wine lovers seek and prize.
And so I complained about it.
And yet, at the end of that column, my attitude took an odd turn. The high-alcohol Tuscan red wine I had been complaining about, “Ateo” Sant’Antimo Rosso, turned out to earn at least my grudging praise as “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.”
Now when I encounter a table wine from a region, grape, producer, or importer that I generally like, I’ve tried to be less quick to put it back on the shelf simply because it lists alcohol content over 14%. In general this has paid off. Somehow this selected set of high-alcohol wines seems to be made more traditionally, with good fruit-acid balance and appealing texture in spite of the number on the label.
Maybe the industry – or at least selected artisanal producers – are learning to deal with the effects of climate change. Or maybe I’m just mellowing. It could happen!
Substack Chat: Lately I’ve been rethinking my instinctive dislike for table wines over 14% alcohol, if they’re well-made and balanced How about you?
The respected British wine writer Andrew Jefford dived deeply into this issue in the article Let’s reconsider how we think about alcohol levels in the Oct. 25, 2025 edition of Decanter magazine.
Jeffords’ report, subtitled, “With climate change causing alcohol levels to climb, it’s time to reassess how we think about the [alcohol level] of our bottle – wine lovers and winemakers alike,” is long and detailed; I won’t quote it at length here, but can’t resist sharing Jeffords’ conclusion: “My own hope … is that those who love wine will continue to treasure a range of alcohols in wine as they do every other aspect of wine’s expressive amplitude – and do so without the unhelpful aesthetic rigidity that can follow a focus on stated alcohol figures. Our wine reflects our world. Despite everything, both remain beautiful.”
This week’s featured wine, Clos du Gravillas Cote Obscur Vin de France Rouge, a dark, non-traditional blend of Carignan Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, comes in at 13.5% alcohol, on the high side of the traditional range but now probably close to the median for quality reds. It’s deep, dark, and delicious, and not at all hot, harsh, or unbalanced.
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