More stuff on a much discussed subject. No smart remarks, please.

Body Heat

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No smart remarks, please.

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Is this a problem?

For many Chronicle Wine section readers, it is. We constantly get unbidden letters decrying high alcohol levels. And here's why: If your limit was once three glasses of wine, based on alcohol levels below 12 percent, you probably should now stop at two.

Exactly. More alcohol = less wine... at least for this moderate drinker. How can that be good?

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Alcohol gives wine its body. When balanced with sufficient acidity, a high-alcohol wine can taste richer, with softer mouthfeel, than one lower in alcohol.

A fine point, but if the room starts spinning, am I appreciating the wine any more? Not really. Of course, YMMV.

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The long, cool 2005 growing season in California will lead to some of the lowest alcohol levels in years

Oooh. How terrible! Is this why everyone is so hot and heavy (pun intended) on how great the 2005 vintages will turn out?

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"I had a guy try to sell me 16.5 percent Merlot," says Kent Liggett, owner and wine buyer at 1550 Hyde restaurant in San Francisco. "He said (critic Robert) Parker liked it out of barrel. I said, 'Parker can drink it. You drink two glasses and you'll be face down on your plate.' "

Nicely put. And don't forget about the liver.

When I drink wine, I like to feel a little burn.

eswrite, you must be, what... 90 years old?

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eswrite, you must be, what... 90 years old?

What gave it away?

Being a total food/wine matcher, I thought this was an excellent article. Wines that trample over the food is a problem.

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"People say Pinot Noir goes well with fish, but not if it's 15.6 percent alcohol," Parr says.

Very true. When people suggest fish or even most chicken dishes when I'm opening a Martinelli, Loring or other ultra ripe CA PN, I need to explain the size of these wines and that it won't work well.

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"California Pinot is so rich now, you could have it with steak if you wanted to," Liggett says. "I always like to think of Pinot as a little more delicate on its feet." Those delicate wines are the sort of Pinots usually produced in the grape's native home in Burgundy.

I find some of these RRV Pinots and other areas to be almost matchless when it comes to main meal food, but they can be real tasty though and there is always great cheese to eat!

You heard it here first. . .

In the near future, some new, boutiquey producer will make lower alcohol wines, get big scores, become a media darling, and therefore a darling with the score whores, and all of it will be spun as a "cutting edge" take on "physiological maturity," expression of terroir and a more natural approach to wine.

Bottom line, it's just a fad to pick grapes that are over ripe.

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Bottom line, it's just a fad to pick grapes that are over ripe.

From your keyboard, to the ears of Bacchus!!!

Almost all of my favorite Cabs are 13.5% or below. However, I haven't tried one of these 15%+ bombs that is over 10 years old yet.

Another very interesting article from the same section and writer. Scary

Scary

That was a really good article. I was beginning to wonder why I always heard about people polishing off "a bottle of wine" with dinner. Two glasses and I'm pretty buzzed. I also noticed the very present burn of alcohol in many wines I've tried. Esp in most Zins. I like bold big wines (at least I think I do) but still haven't really gotten turned onto the food/wine pairings yet. Maybe this is why.

I also thought it was a very good point about terroir. A wine from one winery should not be expected to taste like one from another regardless of the grape varietal. As an Ecologist I can appreciate how everything from the microclimate to variation in soil moisture levels, surrounding vegetation, and terrain of a certain place all contribute to a wines character and taste. It's one of the reasons I find wine fascinating. The end of the article did have a point too though about how CA's terroir tends towards more alcoholic wines. Maybe with the popularity of CA wines everyone else just followed along? Who knows? Either way, thanks for the interesting read.

California is a big, big state. Are you or the article claiming California has a distinct statewide terroir? Doesn't each vine have its own distinct terroir?

This is yet another case where one who supposedly believes in and talks about terroir, uses language to discuss it that negates the entire concept. Do I need to continue, or do you all still buy this terroir fairytale?

I wish you folks would address this article. What effect does manipulating the alcohol have on terrior.
High Tech

There are some who believe terroir is an actual "thing" that can be expressed in a wine,but what about the human actions:

vineyard development
chemical inputs
yields
"organic" inputs
choice of trellis systems
clonal selection
varietal selection
brix at harvest
TA at harvest
when to pick
vendange vert
stem inclusion
destemming
vine spacing
yeast used
ml/no ml
filter/no filter
coarse filter/ sterile filter
cold stabilize/no cold stabilize
water back
chaptilization
acidulate
SO2 use
racking
saignee
cold soak/no cold soak
oak/no oak
French oak/American oak/Slavonian oak/other oak
toast level
cooper
grain tigtness
size of barrel
leese stirring/no lees stirring
post fermentation maceration/no post fermentation maceration
temperature of cellar
blending/single varietal
bottle format
alcohol removal
water removal

Tell me, what terroir can survive this human intervention. Some will note mineral scents, or damp soil scents or some other fanciful marketing phrase like "Rutherford Dust," which I have pointed out countless times is almost never mentioned in reviews of wines from Rutherford by any critic or poster on these boards.

To question the impact of alcohol on terroirimplies the existence of terroir as an objectively identifiable empirical fact, which is highly debateable. In addition, it implies that any qualifiable or quantifiable terroir must be listed with an asterisk (to include the above human intervention, which may be what you are tasting, rather than terroir of a certain site) so as to make it a real strecth to believe it means anything at all in the finished wine. In other words, to be intellectually honest, one must say, "The 2001 Such-and-Such Estate reflected the terroir of the vineyard when planted with X clone, on X rootstock, at X spacing, . . ." and so on.

How can some say Pinot Noirs made from grapes outside of Burgundy are Burgundian? Parker himself alludes to a California or Australian wine's Pauillac-like nose of lead pencil or a Monterey County Pinot Noir's Domaine Dujac-like nose of cherries and earth. . .

Mr. Suckling himself has stated that he has missed the mark dramatically, as I'm sure we all have, at guessing the appellation of wines served blind. Great wines, receiving scores in the 94+ range often have kudos to the winemaker, or the winemaking.

Man changes everything he touches. Wine is no exception.

Oh brother. Here we go again.

Dude, what do you want, the whole wine world to bow at your feet and say "you're right cdr11, we'll never use the word terroir ever again. Thanks for setting us straight Mr. 11." Let's just assume they did and you can drop this neverending tirade of yours?

Wine is and always will be something romanticized by certain members of the population (and by certain members of the population, I mean not you), and those are the same people you will never get to stop from using the word. Capisce?


LT, I generally do not like hot wine, but I'm also not going to return my Katnook Odyssey.

I'm open to changing my mind. My experience, however, tells me that terroir is like the Emperor's New Clothes. I have not made a final conclusion for myself whether or not terroir exists and is identifiable as something independent of man's influence before, during and after the winemaking process and at tasting. I simply am looking for someone to offer some evidence.

It's not a tirade, it's a discussion.

Now, back to the topic, does alcohol mask terroir, or is it part of the expression of terroir? To me, this question is like asking, "What is your favorite sea creature, a sea lion or the Loch Ness monster?" Mustn't the existence of the Loch Ness monster be proven before the original question can be pondered? Is terroir simply a romantic notion? You imply that it may be.

To answer Low Tannin's question, shouldn't that issue be resolved?

If I stipulate that terroir exists and is an independent, identifiable characteristic of a finished wine, then no, alcohol cannot mask it. The site produces high alcohol wines and is therefore an expression of the site's unique terroir. Unless of course, alcohol content in a finished wine (a human decision to a large extent) is another asterisk as it relates to terroir.

cdr,
I am so used to taking most of what you say as sarcasm, that when you write something that might not be sarcastic it makes me ponder.

spo,

I suppose I have cried wolf on this issue. I have attempted way back when to engage serious wine people in this discussion and people get pissed, like I'm insulting their sophistication or something. I believe this is an important question because it is the basis for many if not all of the high prices we see, as well as the explanation why a certain winery claims to have a better wine. Think of the wineries whose wines we all enjoy and no one knows who the winemaker is or how the wine is made or handled in the cellar. People are expendable, but land that cost many thousands, if not millions is not - the winery is stuck with it and thus has a rather large stake in proclaiming its importance to the quality of the finished wine. Have you seen a website that openly proclaims, "Our wines taste the way they do because of the highly technical agricultural and enological decisions and manipulations we make in growing the fruit and turning it into wine. We can make almost any style of wine we want, but the winemaker likes the style he has chosen to produce and thinks you'll like it too."

No, we get the usual, "We believe the wine is 95% made before it reaches the winery. . ." "We use a decidedly non-interventionist approach. . ." It's a bunch of high-minded, empty crap, in my opinion and it insults our intelligence.

I am far more likely to believe in the concept of terroir when discussing apples. Something one picks off a tree and can taste exactly as the site determined it to be, although man's intervention and impact cannot be overstated in apple orchard management either.

The truth for the consumer has to be out there somewhere. I firmly believe that man's intervention in the wine gape growing/winemaking is the most important factor in how a finished wine will taste.

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Originally posted by cdr11:
Now, back to the topic, does alcohol mask terroir, or is it part of the expression of terroir?

For me, this is the wrong question. I don't drink terroir; I drink wine. So the question is whether high alcohol masks or overwhelms the wine, to the point where all you are smelling and tastings is fumes... and not for very long before you pass out.

Incidentally, just last night I had a Seghesio Sangiovese flagged at 14.6%, and it tasted fine, imparting none of the high alcohol (>13.5% for me) buzz. I'm guessing it wasn't as high as 14.6%, but whatever it was, it was well balanced and simply lovely with tomatoe sauced pasta and Italian sausage.

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Originally posted by cdr11:
California is a big, big state. Are you or the article claiming California has a distinct statewide terroir? Doesn't each vine have its own distinct terroir?

This is yet another case where one who supposedly believes in and talks about terroir, uses language to discuss it that negates the entire concept. Do I need to continue, or do you all still buy this terroir fairytale?

Geez, have a glass of wine and chill out ! I wasn't trying to claim anything, just commenting on an interesting point I read. As far exactly whether terroir should describe an entire state or a single vine, I guess it all depends on the scale you're looking at. Of course there will be local and regional differences within a state. I assumed that was a given and that others would assume that as well. My mistake, obviously, as we all know what they say about assumptions! The article was making a general statement that I thought was interesting. No need to be so insulting.

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Originally posted by cdr11:
I have not made a final conclusion for myself whether or not terroir exists and is identifiable as something independent of man's influence before, during and after the winemaking process and at tasting. I simply am looking for someone to offer some evidence.

I seem to recall reading something about certain molecules in wine that can be detected as a specific taste or aroma are the same molecules that can be found in the soil or surrounding vegetation of the vinyard. I can't remember exactly where I read this so I'm sure it doesn't exactly count as "evidence", but wouldn't that count as terroir? And why does it have to be terroir or human influence during the wine making process? Why can't they both influence the final product? People need to think a little more abstractly. Everything in the world is not one or the other, black or white. It just doesn't seem like such a huge controversial stretch to think that the environment in which a wine grape grows could have an affect the final product. Stupid novice me, I guess!

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Originally posted by cdr11:

vineyard development
chemical inputs
yields
"organic" inputs
choice of trellis systems
clonal selection
varietal selection
brix at harvest
TA at harvest
when to pick
vendange vert
stem inclusion
destemming
vine spacing
yeast used
ml/no ml
filter/no filter
coarse filter/ sterile filter
cold stabilize/no cold stabilize
water back
chaptilization
acidulate
SO2 use
racking
saignee
cold soak/no cold soak
oak/no oak
French oak/American oak/Slavonian oak/other oak
toast level
cooper
grain tigtness
size of barrel
leese stirring/no lees stirring
post fermentation maceration/no post fermentation maceration
temperature of cellar
blending/single varietal
bottle format
alcohol removal
water removal

I think you forgot barrel age, CDR11.

Personally, I'm in the terroir=5% of the product camp. Unless you include weather/latitude/temperatures/sun exposure attributes of location... clearly you can't go growing any grape any place.