I went to a wine tasting dinner that featured wines from a small B.C. producer. The 1st wine was a 2004 pinot gris that had a good blush colour from being left on the skins. At any rate, without any alcohol burn feel, the wine 16% alcohol. Isn't that abnormally high for a white wine? I don't think it was fortified or chapelised.
A 16 percent alcohol white wine is strong, but not as strong as some. I don't know how unusual that is for a B.C. wine. However, back in the
70s, David Bruce in California made several wines that strong and stronger. I remember a dry riesling he made that was about 17 percent alcohol. it was not very well balanced. In addition to having extremely ripe grapes, great care in fermentation and sometimes selection of special strains of yeast that tolerate a high alcohol content are required.Reply to snipped-for-privacy@cwdjr.net .
Salut/Hi Tom S,
le/on Fri, 03 Jun 2005 03:27:27 GMT, tu disais/you said:-
Unless I'm mistaken, the record for more or less natural yeast strains is held by a tokay strain, which can ferment a little higher. I suspect that there are two different abilities required. One is to be able to withstand the high alcohol levels as the fermentation progresses, before dying. The other (and this is where the Tokay strain excells iirc) is the ability to survive and resist the VERY high osmotic pressure on the cell walls caused by the very high sugar concentrations in the starting must. Given that Tokaji Aszu Eszencia can start life with 400-500 gms/litre of sugar, there aren't many yeasts that can withstand it and grow.
I would say that it is high for a BC wine. Can you tell me the name of the producer? Has it already been released? IIRC the 2004 summer started off quite warm but then August was cool and from September on it was pretty normal. Unless this was a late harvest wine I find it surprising that the alcohol is so high. I haven't seen any alcohols that high in the 2003's, which was a very warm vintage.
TimO
Nichol No
If it is late harvest, they don;t say so and it doesn't taste like it is
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.