Alcohol in Wine

What? There's alcohol? Yep, because otherwise you have grape juice. In the olden days, let's say three decades ago or longer, the only thought given to alcohol was whether a European wine had enough because some years the fruit just didn't fully ripen. 

This Pinot is 14.6%
That's too high for me
but lots of people love it

 
Since the late 90s it's been whether there's too much in New World wines. Alcohol levels crept up from 13.x% to 15.x% for many wines during that time. This changes the basic nature of the wine. It's up to you to decide if that's for the better. Why has this happened? There are several theories including climate change, vineyard trellising, and consumer preference.

The taste, texture, and structure of a wine is changed by alcohol content. A higher alcohol wine will be fuller-bodied, richer, have a sweet fruit taste -- all things that are pleasing to many. They can also have a sweetness from the alcohol or even a sensation of heat. A lower alcohol wine will seem thinner, less fruity, perhaps more delicate. So a low or no alcohol wine will be different as the taste, texture and structure are different.

The higher alcohol comes from picking the grapes at very ripe levels, giving riper fruit and more sugar that gets converted to alcohol. Many winemakers will manipulate these wines to lower the final alcohol levels to respectable levels, often just by adding water during fermentation to reduce the sugar concentration.

In American wine the law allows a pretty big "slop factor" in reporting alcohol levels so, for instance, a bottle labeled 15% could actually be anywhere between 14% and 16%! We have to hope the winemaker is being honest with us.