Two Sides of the Wine Coin
Sunday, 12th November, 2006
- David Farmer
Hugh Johnson - "these wines do not fulfil any useful purpose; they are merely made to win competitions."
I think my favourite drink is the Seppelts DP 117 Fino which is so light and elegant that you forget it actually runs at 17.5% alcohol. Well made wines can carry high alcohol it would seem.
A great debate is running about high alcohol in wines and a world authority on wines Hugh Johnson recently let fly about this topic. The following passages are taken from a report in Decanter, September, 2006.
"Wines that 20 years ago had 12 or 12.5 degrees of alcohol may now pack a punch at 14.5 or 15 degrees or even more; balance disappears, and drinkability is thought wimpish," he writes.
"Like human bodies packed with steroid-driven muscle, these wines do not fulfil any useful purpose; they are merely made to win competitions ... Mostly what excess alcohol does is muddy the flavours and blur the aromas, so you lose definition and focus and complexity."
Johnson savages the trend: "To make one of the world's most magical substances boring takes some doing."
He says he has drunk red wine from last year that tastes like port, and whites like "peaches in brandy"."
Living as we do in the Barossa we have taken a keen interest in this high alcohol debate. Most recently the topic was discussed in High Alcohol - The Debate Rolls On.
There are good arguments for both sides but we suspect it is much ado about nothing and we draw your attention to the following passage which is from an article called ‘Big Beaujolais’ by Harry Waugh from Compleat Imbiber No 6
"I have a few, alas only a few, bottles of Julienas 1947 and 1949 left, and these are quite outstanding. They are enormously full, rich wines with a high degree of alcohol. When my particular 1947 Julienas was being made the vats became so overheated during the fermentation that water had to be poured in to cool the fermentation down, and even then the wine had an alcoholic content of 17 degrees instead of the normal 11 or 12, and is fabulous-proof indeed, as it turned out, of the Beaujolais belief that in the great vintages the wines can be so fine that, with bottle age they can be compared with many of the masterpieces of the Cote d'Or.
As my 1947 Julienas was so remarkable, I tried an experiment; I invited some really discerning friends in the wine trade to two luncheon parties. I told them they would be drinking two great burgundies 'blind' and would say which they preferred. The wines were my Julienas 1947 and the Romanee Conti of 1937 made from pre-phylloxera grapes. At the first luncheon of six people the voting was three all and at the second, four to two in favour of the Julienas! This extraordinary wine astonished everyone, as it still astonishes me."
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