Sean Thackrey Takes On The Low Alcohol Brigade

I love his wines. Some of his Orions are so good they blow me away. He penned this the other day as a response to yet another low-alch wine missive on Food & Wine. It has some sharp words.

It’s difficult to understand fads such as this; that is, fads such as the assertion that ‘lower’ alcohol is an expression of subtlety and intellectual complexity and general all-around Frenchness—without reminding ourselves just how much of the wine world is simply a branch of the fashion world, and that ‘low alcohol’ happens to be the anorexic currently on the catwalk.

In fact, good wine is always made from ripe fruit, which means fruit ripe for the wine-maker’s particular purpose. Grapes ripe for Champagne are of course less ripe than grapes ripe for Amarone; but they are ripe, not unripe, for their purpose, which thanks to the British invention of the méthode Champenoise in the middle of the 17th century, is to produce an adorable sparkling wine which would no doubt be ruined were the grapes harvested at a higher sugar level.

On the other hand, grapes ripe for Champagne are not ripe for Amarone; which means that, no, for that purpose, they aren’t more ‘subtle;’ they’re just unripe, and the wine made from them will taste accordingly.

So what’s the point of dogma in all this? Since no one disputes that excellent wine can be made from grapes comparatively lower in sugar, what is the point of arguing that this is so, when no one argues the contrary? Methinks someone’s marketing guru doth protest too much.

If what you’re making really is all that delicious, there’s no need to demonstrate the limitations of your palate by claiming that all wines made with one or two percent more alcohol content are undrinkable; this is too perfectly stupid for comment. Pour what you’ve actually made as wine, so that we can all see how it—rather than your PR bling (i.e., we’re all about subtlety and intellectual complexity and general all-around Frenchness)—actually tastes in the glass.

Otherwise, by next year, this will all be so last year—or maybe that was last year, that this was all so last year…?

cool. High alcohol dudes don’t like low alcohol dudes and vice versa. They use each other as marketing foil for their clientele.

I like Sean even more now. The alcohol level in and of itself is not the mark of a greater or lesser wine. And coming from an old-school guy like him, it’s even a better piece of writing.

I have yet to recover from when he stopped making Taurus.

Thanks for the great article clip!

I lived about 1/2 mile from his tasting room in Point Reyes Station and had some awesome, intoxicated evenings with the staff there. I know Orion and Sirius are the big wines, but also the intro-level Pleiades is amazing stuff – I’d be more specific, but I think “stuff” is about as specific as it gets.

Nice little snippet. I too get fed up with people who insist they only want to buy wines with 11-12% alcohol, irrespective of the grapes, the region or the style.

Haven’t seen many folks drawing the wine that low. Most who draw a line draw it at 14%.

I don’t personally have a line in the sand, just preferences for situations. 15% alcohol wine is great after a rotten Tuesday at work! :wink:

Why is it always a Californian who gets upset by this?

Because it is in fact just marketing - on both sides.

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agree

BINGO, at least for me. I thought the missive was pretty lame, frankly.

There are certainly some wines, for my palate, that can carry 14%+ alcohol - some Zins, for example - but by and large, my preferences tend to be in the 12.0% - 13.5% for reds. Above that and I generally start to pick up a level of heat that I find rather off-putting. Not always, but enough for me to pay attention to the alcohol levels stated on a bottle if I have not had that wine before. If it says 14.5% or higher, I simply will not buy it unless I have tried it.

Over-generalization to be sure, but more modern-styled wines that tend to push the alcohol level, always seem to come with heavy oak and low acid. Those are turn-offs for me as well.

Thanks, Roy. I love Sean’s views.
And I could not agree with you more, Glen. I’m hard pressed to think of a $20 Californian red that I enjoy more than his Pleiades YIYO

I know of nobody who has written or spoken this opinion at these alcohol levels…

TTT

Since no one disputes that excellent wine can be made from grapes comparatively lower in sugar, what is the point of arguing that this is so, when no one argues the contrary?

And speaking of points that nobody has ever actually argued:

there’s no need to demonstrate the limitations of your palate by claiming that all wines made with one or two percent more alcohol content are undrinkable

strawman strawman strawman

Low alcohol “brigade” ?

Don’t know about the disparaging military metaphors but, as an individual drinker, I prefer to drink wine with less than 14% abv for reasons of health. Also, I don’t like the buzzy feeling I get after drinking more than a few ounces of higher alcohol wines.

That said, I do have quite a few 14-14.5% abv wines in my cellar. They are all Italian – and they possess a world of subtlety and nuance, mostly without feeling hot.

I won’t knowingly buy a wine with more than 14.5%.

this was actually posted a couple months ago as a response to the horrible NYT article “The Wrath of Grapes.” Loved it then, love it now. Bravo Sean!

please do explain this logic… you can mitigate the alcohol level in wine simply by pouring a smaller glass of a higher ABV. conversely, you can get drunk off of coors light, if you pound 3 pints. [scratch.gif]

And so we spin round and round again.

Thanks for the insight. Whoda thunk?

I drink two 3oz glasses of wine per night. (health guidelines for women are 5oz per day of 12% abv. So I like to live dangerously). If I drink higher abv wine, I have to pour less. And I’d rather not have to do that.

so what 12% wines are you drinking on the regular? if you pour yourself 2 3oz glasses of 13% wine, you’re getting the same buzz as 5.6 oz of 14% wine… at that point, aren’t we just splitting hairs? 0.4oz? sorry, just seems completely illogical.

oh, and hate to kill your “buzz,” but if you take that 12% wine to ETS labs in St Helena, you might be surprised to find out what the real alcohol levels are at. the wineries are fooling you.