The Wine Rules #2 – Alcohol
by Dudley Brown
Alcohol levels in wine are one of the more bizarre applications of The Wine Rules.
To get some sense of “how they do,’” quickly look at stated alcohol percentages on three or four bottles of red wine. How many say 14.5% alc/vol? Now look at the same wine from a few different vintages – is the alcohol level the same each vintage? Coincidence?
Given the enormous variations between varieties, vineyards, regions and vintages, how have so many red wines harmonically converged at the same level of alcohol?
The Rules
Bottles of wine in Australia are required to offer two types of information about alcohol – the percentage of alcohol by volume in the wine and the “standard drinks” information. To arrive at the latter, a standard calculation is employed but, in short, a standard drink contains 10 grams of ethanol. When a winemaker bottles a wine, it would seem that they measure the alcohol level and have it printed on the label. The first step is a necessity, the second a source of confusion.
The rules state that the official tolerance for still and sparkling wine is 1.5% of stated alcohol. Thus, a bottle of red that is either 13% or 16% alcohol would be within the rules to say it is 14.5%. This isn’t a variation of “1.5%” as the rules say but a variation of 9% (more) and 11%(less) depending on whether 13% or 16% is the real alcohol level. For light or white wines, the effect is much greater – a wine labeled as 11% alc/vol can be between 9.5% and 12.5% alc/vol. The swing here is between 12% (more) and 15.7% (less) than the stated alcohol level. Its a fair assumption that most label information is on the low side rather than the high. The net is that we often consume a lot more alcohol than we think we do.
Does this matter? If you’re driving and / or assiduous about keeping track of your consumption, yes. A lot.
But, does it matter otherwise? I think so because the standard drinks calculation is based on the stated alcohol, not the actual percentage of alcohol by volume! For the reasons stated above, the standard drinks measure is consequently, and effectively, hopeless in assisting you to accurately gauge how much alcohol you’ve ingested. As the standard drinks requirement is there to provide consumers with information to protect themselves, shouldn’t it also be required to be accurate?
The Problems
Winemakers try to achieve a few things when stating alcohol:
- Be accurate within the rules (above)
- Offer the consumer assurance that there is an appropriate level of alcohol to meet their expectations
- Not offend the the anti-high alcohol members of the wine trade (buyers, wine critics, sommeliers, etc) who decry “high alcohol” wines
- Make it easy for large volume winemakers to stir up a new batch of the “same” wine without having to print different labels for each batch.
Some of The Results
As where you stand depends on where you sit, the results of this rule are varied:
For a winemaker who honestly labels a red wine as, say 15.2% alc/vol, they might well get caned by much of the the trade and a segment of consumers for all manner of vinous infractions. Meanwhile a wine labelled 14.5% alc/vol that is really 16% alc/vol gets reviewed, bought and praised for its “suppleness and restraint.” This outcome is particularly pernicious in determining the fortunes of wines and winemakers. Why? Because of the wine rules, not because the wine rules.
Another effect is to confuse us – the consumer – into thinking that a wine labelled 14.5% wine but containing much more alcohol, tastes like that. Having sat through trials of the same wine at different levels of alcohol, a few tenths of a percent of alcohol can have enormous sensory variations. Accurate labeling information is important to people who care about and want to learn about wine. How many of us spend time reading, shopping, tasting, thinking or even writing about grape juice?
The worst effect is upon the reputation of the industry – those who use the variation allowed liberally debase the reputation of those who label wine honestly while simultaneously enhancing their own reputation.
As a result of all these, the rules make for a very brave winemaker to state anything higher than 14.5% regardless of the actual alcohol level.
The new Wine Rules
What matters here is that both the trade and consumers rely on the stated alcohol on the label because its the only information they have available to them. Understanding that winemakers are producers and purveyors of addictive and potentially dangerous products, shouldn’t they be required to communicate alcohol content with integrity, authenticity and transparency within a much smaller variance, say .2% or .3%, of stated alcohol rather than 1.5%?
What do you think?
I get what you’re saying, but what does it do to change the rules to be more precise?? Also what if one bottling of a wine happens to be 12% and the second bottling happens to be 13% – the manufacturer then needs new labels!!! The manufacturer is not happy with the added expense and the world is not happy that the other labels previously printed go into land fill. Isn’t these kind of reasons why we have the range!!
I think that the range works well at present, even though, as you’ve discussed, it’s inprecise.
Hi Paul, thanks for reading and commenting. You get to the nub of what I’m discussing. As a consumer, I want to know what I’m drinking. The more information the better. And, the more info disclosed makes me willing to buy from these folks again and again.
I think it’s like printing labels on chicken thigh fillets for example. Each package contains a different quantity of chicken, yet supermarkets don’t seem to have an issue printing special labels for each, despite the fact that getting the quantity of chicken wrong is far lesser an issue than the amount of alcohol. I think where there’s a will, there’s a way. A solution could be found if the law required a smaller window of variance.
Thanks Zoltan. Conversation is good – that’s a blindingly obvious point i hadn’t considered!
As a fan of the big Warrabilla reds that are rarely under 16% I can say for sure that the alcohol in a well balanced wine is not detectable by the palate or nose, but is detectable by the constable at the breatho – not that I’ve been pinged, I have a personal meter that I use to avoid that.
But that extra few % seems to go to the head pretty quick and I’d take a guess it’s like a seesaw, where at a certain level your body keeps processing and consumption in balance, but drink a bit too much and you fall to the ground (or get high as a kite).
Since Constable Boozebus won’t let us be 10% over the limit why should the label be allowed to?
Plus I’m curious how many wines are rich and heady not so much from the fruit quality as the alc/vol.
Thanks Gavin!
To me, its all about respecting the consumers intelligence and palate.
And, now that you’ve chummed the water and since there is no such thing as a little heresy, do you think morphine makers should be offered this much leeway? And, wouldn’t it just be down right fair for cops to offer same?
Given that alcohol is a a drug, it is a wonder that the anti-alcohol mob hasn’t latched on to this lack of precision like a Jack Russel terrier on a brown snakes neck.
For me it is very important that I do know how much alcohol I am consuming and, as Moredsir states, our laws to do with the operation of equipment expect it. The wine rules, however, potentially prevent us from being able to monitor this accurately while simultaneously expecting us to bear the brunt of the outcomes of this situation. There are other reasons, beyond the operation of equipment, that I need to know how much alcohol I am consuming – these, for me, are more in the area of operation of self.
Paul makes the point that re-labeling is expensive, this is true but re-labelling isn’t required. If there was a statement on the back label along the lines of, “For accurate details of the contents of this wine please visit .”, the requirement could be achieved without too much pain. Some producers do not have a web site, but the info could be posted on facebook, community blogs etc etc. This method could be used not only for alcohol but for vintage etc. There will be some cases where for reasons of practical utility a producer can’t do this and fair enough, I’m not suggesting a law change – formal requirements make things messy – merely that many producers could do this to supply the info we need. For the remainder well I guess I may have to make my own allowances within some kind of tolerance regarding alcohol levels, and realise that I have no means, other than perhaps a phone call, to gain knowledge of other contents etc. I could live with such a solution.
QR codes offer a quick solution here – take a pic of the code and a website pops on your phone. Too easy?
Perhaps Dudley, I have little knowledge of QR codes especially their implementation – not sure whether or not they require a middle man, if they do then open to abuse/agendas. Although even if they don’t I could imagine someone keeping their stats and suddenly realising they are getting a lot of traffic via the QR codes … imagine what the marketing gurus would then do with that. Still I guess that’s their prerogative but would quickly pollute the simple info we want to access.
Technology is always a two edged sword. But, more information / disclosure can’t be all bad. My understanding is that the QR would just launch the correct web page with the information we are looking for.
My fundamental belief is that the rules actually inhibit free expression of the winemaker’s art. I don’t care what vintage something is or what alcohol % it is per se. I care about the wine (and what is in it) so I can learn more. Since there is no such thing as a little heresy, why not a big heresy? 20% 2002, 40% 2007, 30% 2008, 10% 2010 might be something really special….
Get over it guys! That margin of error equates to a minute quantity of alcohol in a standard drink. So unless you are driving home, (and in that case you shouldn’t be doing the sums to see how much you can “get away with”) common sense should prevail.
There are to many variances in alcohol tolerance to say that more accuracy will solve any “issues”. Body weight, male or female, what you ate and how much, dehydration or medication. What is a standard drink? We serve the same measure of wine at the restaurant, white and red, German riesling or Barossa shiraz. Do you measure out your 1/8 of a bottle to get your 10g ethanol at the pub or your mates BBQ? These guidelines are intended as a useful guide, and like alcohol tolerance, it will never be an exact science.
You ask if it matters “otherwise” from “if you’re driving and / or assiduous about keeping track of your consumption, yes. A lot.”, and go on to say “to provide consumers with information to protect themselves”
What are we protecting ourselves from? What are we really talking about? With the moderation of alcohol consumption we are protecting ourselves against ourselves, in the use of a legal and controlled drug.
We enjoy a very well educated consumer in this day and age, however our desperation for transparency can at times be a little extreme. I agree a smaller margin of error is necessary, but more important is a shake-up of our drinking culture. Common sense should prevail.
Hey Greg,
Thanks for writing.
No argument that cultural issues (as well as individual judgement, morphotype, tolerance, etc) dwarf 10-15% variances.
The question is: why are the variances so wide and should we be accepting of them?
What I write, and care about, here is integrity, authenticity, transparency in production and labeling of wine.
As a wine drinker and producer, it is important to me. What is interesting is how many people this seems to be resonating with. Thanks for reading and writing.
Cheers,
Dudley
Hi Dudley,
Great to find your blog and very interesting. Curiously, the regulations allow 1.5% either way for the alcohol statement, but don’t actually specify how much error is allowed for the standard drinks. The statement does say ‘approximately…’ though. In real life, how many people do the sums? I think the interesting part is that a winemaker receiving an analysis at 16.0% and deciding to label at 14.5% may be within the law on the alcohol statement but be dubious under the law if calculating the standard drinks from the 14.5%. Anyone out there keen enough to look for examples where the standard drinks are not calculated from the labelled alcohol? (The calc is alcohol x 0.75 x 0.789).
There was a move from the Winemakers Federation to reduce the 1.5% margin down to 0.8%, but I can’t find any info on progress.
Finally, with a couple of cool vintages and a general move to pick earlier, there will be fewer winemakers wanting to stretch the alcohol percentage down and even a few wanting to stretch it up!
Cheers,
Frank
Thanks Frank, hopefully you are right!
Interestingly, Wine Australia (owner of the slowest server on the internet) says this on their website: “No authority is responsible for registering or approving wine labels for use in Australia.” Hmmmm….
For anyone reading this, please check out Frank’s work on wine additions at whatsinwine.blogspot.com.au. Important work for anyone who cares what they drink.
Cheers,
Dudley
Things are changing with labeling. The EU now gives winemakers 0.6% variance. This is about the limit of accuracy for most winery laboratory set-ups and it would be pretty onerous to expect it to be any tighter. Most Aussie winemakers are already working within that tolerance. I believe domestic regulations are heading that way too. I’m not sure the intention was ever to promote fibbing on labels with the 1.5% but of course that did happen, for all the reasons you suggested. It will be reassuring to have 0.6% brought in asap.
Thanks Dan! I’ve found about .3% variance between different labs and machines in my experience. Hopefully, Australian winemakers will choose to lead the world on this and other issues of integrity, authenticity and transparency. Following on these issues sort of defeats the purpose!
I agree that 1.5% is an excessive margin, and would like to see this reduced. Somewhere in the order of 0.3 – 0.6% would seem appropriate. Regarding the need for different labels for different batches having varied alcohol contents, I think this is entirely appropriate. If the batches vary by such a significant margin, I would consider the wines to be different products. More precise labelling requirements would help the consumer understand potential variability in bottles they consume or cellar. In terms of wineries deliberately reporting misleading alcohol contents to avoid negative perceptions, I would be interested in knowing which wineries did and did not employ this tactic. It would influence my perception of the authenicity of the wine/wineries.