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August 02, 2007
Laube Reacts to Dunn’s Alcohol Heights
"High-alcohol wines are controversial. But blaming critics, or even worse, consumers for buying and enjoying these wines misses the mark."
Before we add fuel to the alcohol fire fight, a little information about Mr. Laube is called for...
James Laube is the Senior Editor of the Napa, California Tasting Beat, for Wine Spectator Magazine.
In 1978, James moved to Napa Valley, where living in an agricultural setting reconnected him with my roots. He grew up in Anaheim, Calif., in the 1950s, a time when orange groves surrounded our home and seemed to stretch forever. While Anaheim and surrounding Orange County grew into a major metropolitan area, ke always liked living in small towns and close to the land.
James move to Napa also reconnected him with journalism, and it was then that James started writing about wine. (James had always been interested in writing and had his first newspaper job at age 16.) At San Diego State University, James majored in history and wanted to become a biographer so, in a sense, my career has become a culmination of those two pursuits--a mix of journalism and wine biography.
Once in Napa, the whole scope of wine, grapes, farming, weather, terroir and the people involved in making wine offered a fascinating opportunity--to be a reporter and record events as they happened, hoping to leave future historians with one writer's perspective. My goal: to write about wine for 50 years.
In 1980, James wrote my first articles for Wine Spectator, and James joined the staff full time as its first senior editor in 1983. For roughly 10 years, they tasted all of the wines reviewed in Wine Spectator in our office in San Francisco. That gave James an incredible opportunity to taste the wines of France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, Oregon, Washington, Chile and Argentina.
As they divided the wine world into tasting beats, his area of expertise became California, and for nearly 15 years James has overseen Wine Spectator's extensive coverage of California wine, in addition to being a regular columnist for the magazine and the ‘Wine Spectator online’ site. James typically tastes 5,000 California wines a year, about 100 a week...
James has written four books on the subject (published by Wine Spectator Press): California's Great Cabernets (1989), California's Great Chardonnays (1990) and two editions of Wine Spectator’s California Wine (1995 and 1999), the first edition of which won the James Beard Award for the best wine book of the year in 1996.
James also traveles to and has written about Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Loire Valley, the Rhône Valley and Sauternes in France; Italy; Spain; Germany; Australia; Mexico; and, in the United States, Washington; Oregon; and Long Island, N.Y.
He continues to live in Napa with his family and enjoy reading (his favorite hobby), sports, music, traveling and the outdoors--especially activities that take place off the coast (abalone diving) and on the high seas (salmon fishing). He drinks all kinds of different wines and finds that the wine world is an endlessly fascinating subject. James also thinks his readers are an amazing audience, sharing his passion for wine and the richness and dimension it brings to our lives.
THE HEAT
That’s why I, James Laube, find Randy Dunn’s recent letter (Thoughts On “Higher Alcohol Wines” From Randy Dunn, published in Avenue Vine, July 24, 2007) baffling: Sent to various media outlets and others in the wine industry last week, the letter urges consumers to, in effect, stop drinking wines they apparently like. The timing of the letter, well, better late than never?
Having known Dunn, the owner and winemaker of Dunn Vineyards, in Napa's Howell Mountain appellation, for nearly 30 years, I don’t doubt his sincerity and concern about riper wines and higher alcohols. That he doesn’t like this style of wine is apparent.
But it’s not as if critics are forcing consumers to buy these wines. Ripe wines, irrespective of where they’re from, have a solid base of fans as well as detractors. The popularity of ripe wines is clear; if consumers didn't like this style of wine, it wouldn't sell.
It wasn’t all that long ago that some people would have accused Dunn’s Howell Mountain Cabernets as being too tannic and too aggressive and not the style of wine that goes with meals.
If you substitute the word tannin for alcohol in Dunn's letter, it underscores that the enjoyment of alcohol or tannin is a matter of personal taste and preference. Alcohol and tannin levels in wine will drop when people stop drinking those styles of wine.
"It is time for the average wine consumers, as opposed to tasters, to speak up. The current fad of higher and higher alcohol wines should stop. Most wine drinkers do not really appreciate wines that are 15 -16. +% alcohol. They are, in fact, hot and very difficult to enjoy with a meal. About the only dish that seems to put them in their place is a good hot, spicy dish.
"I don’t believe the average person is so insensitive to flavors and aromas that they must have a 15% Cabernet, Chardonnay, or Pinot Noir to get the aromas and flavors. Influential members of the wine press have lead the score chasing winemakers/owners up the alcohol curve and now I hope that it soon will lead them down.
"Winemaking is not really much different than cooking. The end product should be enjoyable to consume—not just to taste. Hopefully most who read this don’t think it’s a novel concept that we should be making wines to consume. Would you want to sample a soup, meat dish or other course that is so overpowering that you cannot enjoyably finish what is in front of you? These new wines are made to taste and spit—not to drink.
"This is all linked to my views on the ever evasive and vanishing terroir; the subtleties of terroir in wines have been melted together in a huge pot called “overripe” or the vogue “physiologically mature” grape. Gone are the individualities of specific regions, replaced by sameness—high alcohol, raisiny, pruney, flabby wines. Likewise, the descriptor “herbaceous” was often used in a positive sense when describing Cabernets. Now it is the kiss of death. Voluptuous—I do remember seeing that only occasionally, but not on the aroma/flavor wheel.
"So I would like the consumers to take the lead for a change, rather than being led. Ask for wines that are below 14% when you are out to dinner. The reactions are fun, but the results are not good for United States wines. The sommelier usually comes back with a French or New Zealand wine. On the restaurant level, high alcohol wines have reduced the number of bottles sold. It is very simple arithmetic; % alcohol times volume equals satisfaction. If % alcohol goes up, volume must go down for satisfaction to stay the same—or else we all get plastered.
"Consumers—wake up and get active. Reviewers—please at least include the labeled alcohol percentage in all your reviews, and try to remember that not everyone is spitting."
Source: “Why Dunn's Anti-Alcohol Plea Misses the Mark,” James Laube Unfined, Wine Spectator, August 02, 2007
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July 24, 2007
Thoughts On “Higher Alcohol Wines” From Randy Dunn
Posted by fortna at August 2, 2007 05:58 PM
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Comments
Dave,
I, for one, think Laube is just covering his [BACK SIDE].
The wine critics (mostly Parker in the beginning) have been very consistent and quite specific in the wines they like...and have given high scores to.
And those are very ripe and very big wines. Which is easy to understand, as these are the wines that stand out in tastings.
But it's not the alcohol that's the problem. It's just a symptom.
The problem is the HIGH GRAPE SUGARS at harvest.
Due to alcohol labeling laws and numerous techniques that can lower the potential alcohol, winemakers are opting for picking at 25+ brix...which about 2 full points over what they used to shoot for. I still have a few wonderful old Cabernets in the 12% alcohol range.
They have aged beautifully.
But I've been aging great wines for close to 30 years, and one thing I do know...when alcohol rises much above 13.5%...the wines don't last nearly as long and don't age gracefully.
That's my primary complaint.
High alcohol = overripe fruit = short lived wines.
A couple of years after release, these blatantly over-ripe wines begin to show that are in-fact overripe...by exhibiting cooked plum and/or prune and/or even raisin notes.
And that's IF the fruit holds. Most of the time it does not.
This is NOT A GOOD THING, despite the obsessive rantings of the Anti-Christ of wine (RP).
Laube is just going along with Parker.
The WS has to keep up, and Laube is part of that.
But I do find it funny that so many critics continue to predict long aging capability for these "new styled" (high alcohol) wines (as if they were in the 12%-13% range), when in reality Laube (and many others) have no real reference point.
This is all quite new to them. But it should not be. There have been plenty of high alcohol wines produced in the last 30 years for them to know what happens.
But either Laube does not, or has conveniently forgotten what happens.
And I have trouble believing he has a bad memory.
But to reiterate a key point. A 15% alcohol wine (even if that's the true value) is probably a full point higher (in terms of ripeness of grapes).
So a 14.5% wine, which should have translated from approximately 24.5% brix, probably was produced from grapes harvested at 25.5% brix.
And that a BIG difference, especially with regard to ageability...even to the extent of being enjoyable only a year later.
Overripe wines are FLAWED.
It's a fact, not opinion. Any characteristic in a wine that causes that wine to deteriorate rapidly is a flaw. And that's especially true for expensive wines (supposedly built to age).
And Laube (with all of his experience) should know that and should stop being part of the problem.
The Wine Heretic
Posted by: Editor at September 27, 2007 09:25 AM