Low ABV wine production methods ‘could be used’ to tackle climate change
Some estates in New Zealand are harvesting earlier to deliver aromatic wines at under 10% ABV, but their canopy management techniques could also help others to warmer summers, according to Marlborough’s John Forrest.
Winemaking techniques being used in New Zealand to make lighter Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blancs could be applied in the fight against climate change, according to one leading light in the country’s lower ABV movement.
While some companies are launching low ABV wines with mixed success, others have found it easier to meet the consumer half-way. There are now 60 different skus of lighter wine being produced in New Zealand. In fact, the country is the top-producer of not low, but lower alcohol wines in the world. The category’s growth even prompted the formation of a joint industry initiative of winegrowers, government and wine companies called NZ Lighter Wines Research Programme and, in 2014, a NZ$17m research and development programme to help more producers join in.
John Forrest of Marlborough estate Forest Wines, launched a lower ABV wine range in the UK, called The Doctors’, last year after close to 15 years of research and development. First, he tried removing the alcohol after fermentation, but told the drinks business “after two years of trials I actually thought it was a failure.” Next, he moved on to canopy management, cutting away leaves at certain intervals in the vineyard and monitoring their progress with routine taste testing. Eventually, he managed to get to veraison a week earlier, with lower sugar levels in the grapes but the acidity and phenolics required to make it work in the winery. There are four wines in The Doctors’ range, including a still rosé and red made from Pinot Noir at 9.5% ABV. “There is no variety that can’t be charmed by this process”, he said. Now, he thinks
He is not the only producer in New Zealand to discover you can avoid removing the alcohol. Natalie Christensen, chief winemaker at Yealands Wine Group, says her employer has a similar approach to making its lighter wines. Yealands sells a lighter Sauvignon Blanc at 9% which she says is created with some more severe canopy trimming in the vineyard, as well as harvesting earlier. “You slow up the brix (sugar) accumulation during the ripening period, but still experience acid degradation and flavour development.”
Implications for climate change
Forrest believes the technique most producers are applying to lighter wine production could have wider implications for the industry as a whole. Climate change has already raised the ABVs of wines we drink over the past 30 years, according to recent studies. There have been a number of reports about the increasing levels of alcohol in wines attributed to the effects of climate change. Hotter summers worldwide have played a key role in the average alcohol levels in wine rising from 12% – 12.5% in the 1980’s to 13.5 – 14.5% today. In a 2014 study published by Elsevier, Drs Michelle Renée Mozell and Liz Thatch of Sonoma State University note that, while some famous growing regions will lose their ability to produce wine altogether, others have already seen the flavour composition of their creations altered by warmer weather, which raises the sugar levels in grapes and, ultimately, how much of those sugars are converted to alcohol during fermentation.
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Forrest, who said harvest season in New Zealand is now “typically one week earlier” than it was when he set up Forrest Wines 32 years ago, believes the canopy management techniques he has applied to lower ABV wine production could help to bring a winery’s overall alcohol levels down. He suggests harvesting a small parcel much earlier than usual and producing a batch of lighter wine, but allowing the rest of the grapes to mature as usual, then blend the two together to deliver to temper the alcohol level of the end product.
“I’ve done this only successfully once,” he says.”If you harvest your usual 13% Chardonnay in a very hot year, you’re going to end up with higher alcohol. You can take a portion of that yield early and put it through the steps, and end up at a lower ABV, so 10% ABV with 20% of the Chardonnay.”
Forrest said this technique “might be more widely used as a maintenance technique going over the next century, rather than people like myself making lower alcohol wine.”
“I think the technique is going to extend the life of grape growing regions in the world,” he said. “It’s definitely one technique to hold the alcohol.”
However, there is no “one-size fits all” approach, and harvesting earlier comes with its own problems. Grapes that are harvested earlier could contain disproportionately high acid levels, for example. Lower ABV producers say they have mitigated this by strategically pruning vine leaves and allowing some grapes to get more sun exposure earlier in the harvest season, but other estates are employing techniques such as planting at higher altitudes, and experimenting with unusual grape varieties that could withstand longer summers and reduced rainfall.
Mozell and Thatch suggest a number of different techniques vineyard owners could use to mitigate these, from “heat and light abating cultural practices, such as canopy management and irrigation techniques, to adjust and maintain berry and wine quality”, to a measured use of nutrients in the soil, to delaying the earlier onset of maturation by “markedly increasing the vine crop load”.
