What Is Hot Wine?
Submitted June 1st, 2009
That wine is hot!
What exactly is ‘hot’ when you talk about wines? Is hot a cool thing? Do winemakers strive to make ‘hot’ wines?Let’s take the questions in a mixed sequence. First, no. Hot is not Cool?
Winemakers don’t want to hear that comment about their wines. Hot is a specific reference to the alcohol level in the finished product, and when critics or wine writers label a wine as ‘hot’ they are referring to the ‘burn’ on the palate that high alcohol levels can create. That level varies by individual.
Where does the alcohol come from?
Fermentation is the chemical reaction that occurs when yeasts consume the sugar (measured in Brix levels) in the grape juice creating the by products of alcohol and carbon dioxide (among other things).
The alcohol by volume (ABV) level of a finished wine can reasonably be calculated by dividing the Brix, of the grape juice by 2, so 26 Brix equates to 13% alcohol by volume.
Hot, dry climates such as in California, Oregon, and Washington.
The New world growers, Argentina, Australia, America, Chile, don’t have that problem which Burgundy, and occasionally Bordeaux, have of bringing grape Brix levels to 26. It’s a simple matter of temperature in the vineyards. Growers in CA, OR & WA don’t have the same lack of heat in the vineyards to cope with. In fact, their problem is exactly opposite, Brix at the 28 to 30% levels before entering the “Late Harvest” state is normal. Literally translated, that means it is possible to ferment wines from these states with a 14% to 15% ABV level, perhaps even higher.
One interesting side bar is the issue of adding sugar to the juice to increase the alcohol level. This is often done with the great red wines of Burgundy, although it is glossed over and frequently denied, because in that region it is often very difficult to get the brix levels up to that 26% number.
It’s that difficulty that may in fact be the reason why that number is deemed ideal.
Is Twenty-Six Brix and 13 % ABV an Ideal or Merely an Achievable?
The French in both Bordeaux and in Burgundy have on occasion had difficulty harvesting grapes at the 26 brix levels. Warmer climates don’t have this problem. WA does not have this problem.
But there is a second issue: acids. Hot climate grapes, which have no trouble reaching the magic brix number, are typically lower in acids. Acids are the ‘bones’ that give wine its ability to age; acids give wine a quality referred to as the structure, the skeletal features upon which all the component tastes and aromatic elements rely for delivery in the glass.
The problem of low acids in hotter climate grapes is corrected by the addition of acids, usually tartaric acid. If you accept that the solution to the low brix problem is to add sugar during fermentation in colder climates or at least colder years, it should not be a stretch to accept that adding acids for high brix juices in hotter climates is the equivalent.
But what is hot?
In the old French wine world, where growers had difficulty achieving 26 brix, 13.0 ABV was the ideal, and 27 brix, 13.5% ABV was on occasion achievable. Those numbers representing the ideal dominated the wine world for centuries…
Is wine with an ABV of 14, 15, 16% ABV hot?
Only you can answer that question. I suggest you do this: Ignore the label; pour the wine in your glass without reading the label. Sip it, swish it around in your mouth and swallow it.
If you feel that ‘burn’ on the sides of your tongue and at the back of your throat after you have swallowed, then that wine, for you, is hot. That burn for some might happen even at the magic number, 13.5% ABV. When you’ve finished, look at the label to identify the alcohol level. Whatever the number is, that for you is your “Hot” tolerance level, and you should look for wines with a slightly lower ABV to avoid the ‘burn’ in your palate in the future.
Alex Saliby, Contributing Editor