Meanings, Motives and the Moratorium

As anyone who watches my weekly video wine reviews on this blog will know, in one of the early episodes I instituted a limit on alcohol content in the wines I review.  I did not fully explain my reasons for this moratorium at the time, as I felt that an adequate explanation required more detail than was feasible in a 10-15 minute video segment.  So now I would like to offer a clearer insight into my reasoning.

There are basically three reasons I instituted the moratorium on wines above 13.5%  ABV,  all informed first and foremost by an innate aversion I have always had for high alcohol wines.   I have already addressed one of these reasons in one of my recent video reviews.  It is simply that I feel all too often alcohol above a certain percentage tends to overpower some of the more delicate, interesting, and complex aromas that make wine such a uniquely wonderful beverage.  When I taste wine I want it to taste like wine, not a cocktail or fruit liqueur.  Granted, there is certainly the rare wine that balances higher alcohol levels with well integrated aroma characteristics, but for me, that is more the exception than the rule.

My second reason is principally a stylistic one.  Here there is certainly plenty of room for disagreement, which I wholeheartedly welcome.  I am just not a big fan of big wines.  What I mean by that is wines that hit you over the head with their over-extracted density and concentrated sweetness.  I find that a lighter style of wine generally shows more interesting nuances and complexity of terroir.  Not only do I find this style of wine more interesting, but a more suitable accompaniment to food.  This preference is no doubt a large reason for my fondness of and  interest in promoting naturally produced wines.

My third reason goes more towards what I believe wine has traditionally been and should continue to be.  Wine has throughout history been a central part of many a civilization's diet, and an indispensable accompaniment to food.  Until recent history wine has been a vital cultural ingredient in the daily routine in many European countries with a long wine history.  Wine's central role in daily life in France, Italy, and Spain has only recently met with resistance, no doubt in part to far higher alcohol levels in most of today's wines.  It is only over the past three decades that wines have tended towards higher and higher alcohol levels, which naturally makes even reasonably moderate daily wine consumption less realistic.  I tend toward the now somewhat antiquated view of wine as a healthful, life-enhancing elixir which should be part of a daily routine, and should be made in such a way that it can be enjoyed routinely without trepidation.  This, of course, means that its alcohol level needs to be such that one can still function normally after consuming a reasonable volume, say two to three glasses with a meal.

I was pleasantly surprised and interested to find a recent article by Bartholomew Broadbent on Jancis Robinson's Purple Pages dealing with this last point.  In it he shares my view of the role of wine in our daily lives.  Broadbent discusses an interesting set of experiments carried out by retired physician Dr. Rusty Gaffney MD, in which he found that consuming equal amounts of wine (two 5oz glasses) with an alcohol level anywhere between 12.0% and about 13.5%  ABV metabolizes in such a way that after one hour his blood alcohol level was at .07, no matter what the wine's alcohol percentage.  However, as alcohol percentages increase much above 13.5%, blood alcohol levels after one hour race upwards quite rapidly to .10% in wine with 15% alcohol.  I won't reproduce the more specific numbers here.  For this I would refer you to the August 18th article.  What is important here is that Gaffney was able to conclude that 'there is a noticeable increase in blood alcohol level when imbibing wine at or above 15% alcohol, with legal intoxication occurring within one hour after two drinks.'  This shows that within a certain, more traditional range of alcohol content, the human body is able to metabolize wine efficiently, but not so at levels that are much more commonly seen in many of today's wines.  I found this experiment interesting as it seems to confirm my personal observation that my body feels quite in tune and healthy when consuming wine at less than about 13.5% ABV, whereas higher levels tend to have a lasting debilitating effect, even in smaller quantities.

I see my role in the world of wine ('Winedom' as I like to refer to it) as a promoter of naturally produced, wholesome, healthful, close-to-the-land wines that express their place of origin's unique characteristics.  I see these as wines that are closer to the way nature intended them to be, without artificial adornments, unhealthful additives, or unnecessary manipulation.  I find it only fitting that the wines I enjoy and recommend should therefore also be attuned to the body's ability to metabolize them efficiently and not detract from a healthy lifestyle.

Hopefully I have here been able to express the motives behind my self-imposed alcohol moratorium adequately.  I have, of course, left room for lifting the moratorium in certain cases, including fortified and certain types of dessert wines traditionally higher in alcohol, and which are generally drunk in much smaller volume.  I also hope that my intentions are not misconstrued to mean that I believe that higher alcohol wines cannot be excellent.  Much of these musings are simply an expression of my personal preferences and a declaration of my view of the role of wine in our daily lives.

So with that, go forth, and continue to explore and savor the exciting, wonderful world of wine.  And don't forget to keep it natural, and keep it interesting!