Lettie Teague's take on alcohol levels in wine

[Shaun Crowley]

Bob.

Your last name is wood. Your first name is Bob.


I respectfully laugh.

[Lyle Fass]

I have no comment but all I'll say is this, this is not the first article that Lettie has written that has been intensely questioned. There is a pattern here.

I'm sorry, Lyle, but you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. Neither do you, Shaun.

Hey if that's a joke then......Ha Ha.

[Peter Kleban]

Calm down boys.

As a scientist, we strive for precision and accuracy. The way she phrased her point was imprecise. No need to argue her credentials.

Linda, what you trying to do? Spoil the fun?? Next thing, these guys will need a spanking .

[Peter Kleban]

Linda, serious question re the sugars: if you plant, say, Grenache, Pinot, Nebbiolo and Malbec side by side, won't they each have different sugar levels at any given time in response to the same inputs?

Otherwise why do Piemontese vignerons harvest Dolcetto, then Barbera, then Nebbiolo with a three to five week spread?

I guess I have a problem with her phrasing. To be precise, she should have made a comment about different grape varieties ripening at different rates. To say one grape variety is inherently higher than sugar than another is an imprecise statement. If you pick them all at 27 Brix, they all have the same sugar, regardless of when you picked them, no?

Does the alcohol content also depend on how long you let the wine ferment? Or do you just let it go until it's done?

If you let (or if the yeaties allow) your juice go dry, textbook cases will give you a sugar/alcohol conversion rate of approx 0.59- so if your grapes are 25 Brix, you can count on ~14.75% alcohol. Of course, HOW dry your ferment goes, and other variables, can change that number. Sometimes your juice will be physiologically dry, but still have up to 0.25% RS. Sometimes a fermentation will stick if the grapes were extremely sweet. Then your alcohol will be less than the conversion rate, but it will more than likely still be high if the sugar was high enough to produce enough EtOH to kill your yeast.

Thanks, L. You're telling me what the maximum possible ABV is, given the Brix. But is it possible to control the fermentation, I mean stop it short of the max value? Can you dial that--ie, if the max is 14.75, can you make it stop at 14, or 13.5, etc?

[Scott Manlin]

Fine. I'll be Jane. You be Aykroyd.

Jane, you ignorant slut.

"Dan, you self-important swine-ass." Didn't watch, did you?

Nope. But then again name calling is your forte, I prefer ideas...let me know when you get some.

[Bruce G]

Lettie has issues. She likes to write in a fashion that's designed to make people think she's a sophisticated wine drinker and a geek, when in fact she's woefully under-prepared and under-knowledgeable. Hence, she makes statements that either make her sound as though she's a true wine snob, or she makes sweeping generalizations that most of us would like to call her on.

Interesting... I've always found her writing style to be the exact opposite: self-deprecating, full of over-simplification and caricaturish portrayals of real-life people.
Rather than come across as snobbish, she always strikes me as someone writing about wine for beginners, apologetic, far too afraid of providing a deeper treatment of the subject at hand.
On another board somebody described it as 'playing to the "I'm into wine but I don't really have time to learn about it" crowd', which sounds about right.

And, as Lyle implies, most of her work is probably best read as fiction.

[Linda Baehr]

Thanks, L. You're telling me what the maximum possible ABV is, given the Brix. But is it possible to control the fermentation, I mean stop it short of the max value? Can you dial that--ie, if the max is 14.75, can you make it stop at 14, or 13.5, etc?

Absolutely. In cases (especially) of white wines, some people want to leave some RS (many people around here like to make a sweet or off-dry Viognier, or sweet Rieslings, etc.), you can do several things to stop a fermentation at the sugar level you desire- you can turn the chiller down on the tank your wine is in, killing the yeast with cold temp, you can sterile filter at the desired sugar level, etc. We also make a Zin port, and we not only chill the tank, but we add Brandy to kill the yeast.

Of course, if you are only stopping the ferm to get to your desired EtOH level, the sugar will be coming along with it.

[ybarselah]

this being the 600th article written on high-alcohol wines in the past year, it was an abject failure of epic proportions. there is absolutely no there there.

i gotta think that rupert is having second thoughts on the new wine writers.

[Bob Wood]

Fine. I'll be Jane. You be Aykroyd.

Jane, you ignorant slut.

"Dan, you self-important swine-ass." Didn't watch, did you?

But then again name calling is your forte

Maybe you need to read the thread again.

[Peter Kleban]

this being the 600th article written on high-alcohol wines in the past year, it was an abject failure of epic proportions. there is absolutely no there there.

i gotta think that rupert is having second thoughts on the new wine writers.

You really think so? Most of the people who read the WSJ (like most people, period) have very little wine knowledge. The crowd here is a very very select group. So LS' article will be news to most readers, and I can see a certain appeal in it to the crowd that wants to know a bit more about wine and its vagaries.

[Cris Whetstone]

this being the 600th article written on high-alcohol wines in the past year, it was an abject failure of epic proportions. there is absolutely no there there.

i gotta think that rupert is having second thoughts on the new wine writers.

You really think so? Most of the people who read the WSJ (like most people, period) have very little wine knowledge. The crowd here is a very very select group. So LS' article will be news to most readers, and I can see a certain appeal in it to the crowd that wants to know a bit more about wine and its vagaries.

In light of that I would hope she would be more careful to present the issue carefully and present both sides in an educating manner versus one that paints a very black and white picture of a very complex issue.

The failure may not be epic but it is there.

[Peter Kleban]

this being the 600th article written on high-alcohol wines in the past year, it was an abject failure of epic proportions. there is absolutely no there there.

i gotta think that rupert is having second thoughts on the new wine writers.

You really think so? Most of the people who read the WSJ (like most people, period) have very little wine knowledge. The crowd here is a very very select group. So LS' article will be news to most readers, and I can see a certain appeal in it to the crowd that wants to know a bit more about wine and its vagaries.

In light of that I would hope she would be more careful to present the issue carefully and present both sides in an educating manner versus one that paints a very black and white picture of a very complex issue.

The failure may not be epic but it is there.

I agree with that, Yaacov. But I don't think she is trying to be careful and complete. She's trying to write something that the average WSJ reader will find of interest. A rather different goal.

[Richard T r i m p i]

..But I don't think she is trying to be careful and complete. She's trying to write something that the average WSJ reader will find of interest. A rather different goal.

Matt Kramer gets skewered by (we) uber-geeks for the same thing. Overly detailed analyses would probably cost Lettie her job. Judging the preferences of her readership is something she's doubtlessly more qualified at doing than most of us.

RT

[Peter Kleban]

..But I don't think she is trying to be careful and complete. She's trying to write something that the average WSJ reader will find of interest. A rather different goal.

Matt Kramer gets skewered by (we) uber-geeks for the same thing. Overly detailed analyses would probably cost Lettie her job. Judging the preferences of her readership is something she's doubtlessly more qualified at doing than most of us.

RT

Right. But we should complain and point out what's missing, I don't mean to knock that. Always in favor of more and better info...

[G. D y e r]

I have no comment but all I'll say is this, this is not the first article that Lettie has written that has been intensely questioned. There is a pattern here.

Then it sounds like she's doing a bang up job as a columnist. I'm sure most newspapers would be extremely happy if any op-ed piece caused a passionate stir.

Then again, I do like her articles. They're not analytical, nor do they probe into the geeky depths of any particular wine region. But they do tap into the psychology of wine. There was one article where she punk'd some collectors by putting a good Washington wine into a Mouton bottle or something like it. I read another where she went about trying to 'get' Barolo, and the journey was more interesting than the destination. There's a certain freshness to her style I enjoy. I think she knows her stuff, but takes angles that raise more questions than they answer.

And so now she bring up high alcohol. It doesn't get much more psychological than this. Just like anything on the label, a drinker has his expectations cued by what is written. I'd love to see a crowd of people be told a 13% wine was really 15.5% and let the sparks fly! But it's also true that when it comes to wine, the myths are more than half-truths. The best producers, the top appellations, the greatest vintages are all on average better than their peers. And so its the case with high ABV. It's subject to expectations and there are balanced high ABV wines. But usually that 15%+ is evident on a sensory level. In terms of body, almost always. In terms of heat, often enough to be more than a nuisance.

[Doug Schulman]

Possible misquotes and imprecise language aside, I thought the article was well written. I also think Lettie tends to "dumb down" her writing to appeal to a not-so-knowledgeable readership. I am sure she is aware of her target audience and I assume she does well at writing in a way that appeals to the majority of them. Yes, this issue is overly discussed, but there's obviously still a lot of debate and I don't think the average reader of her column has been exposed to it nearly as much as some have.

I am always a bit dismayed when I see people talking about knowing they probably won't like wines above x% abv, be it in general or for variety y. I think this type of closedminded attitude is one of the new forms of snobbery that confuses many and shuts the individual off from possible pleasurable experiences. I think as people who might know a bit more about wine than the average wine consumer, and especially for those of us who sell wine to the public and thus act as educators at times, it is important to not thrust such closedmindedness upon them. I tend to favor wines that are lower in alcohol. I rarely drink anything above 15%, and the majority of what I drink is below 14%. However, I like to try the wine before looking at the number on the label, as I know I can form unfair preconceptions when I see a number above about 14.5. I am often pleasantly surprised at how well a wine is holding its alcohol. A couple of examples are the Aubert Chardonnays I've had (I know the style is bold, but I've never noticed the alcohol), the Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noirs I've had (never noticed the alcohol and the style of what I've had has been fairly elegant), and many, many zinfandels (again, bold, but no heat), all of which can come in above 15% abv. Lettie Teague seems to be making the same point, which I see as one of anti snobbery, so I agree (even if I don't like a couple of her wine examples). I like that she compared the anti high alcohol snobbery to the anti chardonnay snobbery. I cringe every time I hear someone say "I don't like chardonnay", and I hear it regularly.

I use the terms "hot" and "heat when describing some wines and I think it's appropriate. Saying these wines have little heat compared to distilled spirits is irrelevant.

[Cris Whetstone]

Well said Doug.