Alcohol levels exercise growers

Alcohol is always a burning issue in the wine industry but many New Zealand wine makers are now on an unofficial campaign to see its concentration lowered in local wines.

High alcohol levels not only result in fiercer hangovers but they upset the balance of flavour in wine, leaving a hot taste on the finish.

But some New Zealand wine makers insist higher alcohol levels occur as a result of wines that have better balance than they used to.

Esk Valley wine maker Gordon Russell leaves cabernet franc, malbec and merlot grapes hanging on the vines for longer than in the past in a bid to increase ripe flavours in the grapes.

His top wine, The Terraces, attests to this and is both higher in alcohol and better in taste than it was eight years ago.

Master of Wine Steve Smith, who is the general manager of Craggy Range Winery, agrees. "I certainly believe we are drinking better wine than several years ago because we don't have such green flavours in our red wines anymore.

"Much of that is a direct result of leaving grapes hanging out for longer - they develop more sugars and that means higher alcohol."

Mr Smith says alcohol levels in New Zealand wines have risen in tandem with standards in the vineyard, where vines are healthier than they used to be.

"High alcohol in New Zealand is a big issue here because we have a lot of young vineyards.

"In our older vineyards the grapes are getting riper earlier so we are not having to wait for really high sugars for them to get ripe."

Master of Wine Stephen Bennett said high alcohol levels in New Zealand wines sometimes occurred from cropping too heavily.

"As a broad generalisation we are asking young vines in a cool climate to carry too great a crop so that in order to get physiological ripeness we have to harvest the grapes late. And because we have ample light and lots of foliage, we are getting high alcohol levels."

It was possible to make good quality New Zealand wine at 13.5 per cent alcohol.

This was particularly pertinent in Central Otago pinot noir and in Marlborough white wines.

"I think most Marlborough chardonnays and sauvignon blancs are about a percentage [point] of alcohol too high and it makes hot burny-tasting wines that don't taste good with food," said Mr Bennett.

There were wine producers who were aware of this and were working hard in the vineyard to make balanced wines without high alcohol levels.

Hawkes Bay wine maker Peter Cowley cited many New Zealand wines made in 2002 and 2004 as being characterised by alcohol levels of about 14 per cent.

"No one in their right mind is deliberately going to bump an alcohol level up.

"We have had two seasons which naturally led to higher alcohols in the reds and they were untypical, delightful autumns with no rain and no pressure to pick but which were cooler, so wine makers felt they needed to leave their grapes hanging."

Mr Cowley said it was undesirable to leave grapes on the vines for extra days or weeks because it resulted in wines that were higher than usual in alcohol content, often nudging 14 per cent.

"It's a very recent phenomenon ... and while some people say it's better to have wines that taste over-ripe than under-ripe, I don't think that's justification for allowing wines to climb to 14.5 per cent in alcohol."

Red wines made from cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah should be between 13 per cent and 13.5 per cent if wine makers wanted to have a balanced wine, said Mr Cowley.

"We're in the right climate to make good wines at this ripeness level and it's dumb to push it the extra two weeks when you could make a more restrained wine at 13 per cent alcohol that tastes more balanced."