January 2025 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

How Much Alcohol?

We have noticed, in recent years, that the amount of alcohol in the wine we’re tasting (and drinking at home) is increasing. Now there could be a few reasons for that. Maybe our tastes have just turned towards more alcoholic and therefore more flavorful wines. That’s possible, but we don’t remember a shift in the wines we buy, so it’s unlikely. Perhaps the winemakers for our favorite labels have all decided to make more alcoholic products. It’s even unlikelier that all of them would do that at the same time. A more reasonable answer would be that accelerating climate change has made grapes ripen faster, making more sugar in the process. More sugar turns into more alcohol, so there’s a probable solution.

California always produced a lot of high-impact wines; 14.5% is not unusual. But wines north of 15% are more common, and those from areas such as Paso Robles venture into the 16% to 17% range. Even Bordeaux wines that weighed in at 12.5% for decades are now creeping up into the 14% level.

This situation does create a problem for people going wine tasting. If each bottle contains a higher percentage of alcohol and tasters consume the same amount as they did in the past, they’re taking on more of an intoxicant. Here are some tips for dealing with the increased alcohol when visiting wineries.

Ask to see the label of the bottle being served. This is a good idea anyway, since there’s a lot of information on a label. One such bit of data is the alcohol level. Don’t rely on the server to tell you; they usually don’t know. One problem is that the amount of alcohol is often printed in a teeny-weeny font, and it can be anywhere on the bottle, front or back. It’s hard to be unobtrusive when looking forward to it.
Calibrate intake based on the amount of alcohol. For a particularly big boomer (we’re looking at you, David Coffaro) maybe have two sips of each wine instead of three. Or if you’re there for, say, the Cabernet Sauvignon it might make sense to skip the Pinot Noir that the winery is not particularly known for.
Choose wineries to visit with the amount of alcohol in mind. If the plan is to visit a few places that specialize in Zinfandel, for example, it’s clear that there will be big alcohol involved. That grape is so sweet anyway that wines made from it are usually quite potent. So maybe another winery ought to be one that specializes in sparkling wines, which generally are lower in alcohol, in the 12% range or even lower.
No, white wines are not lighter than reds. Plenty of Chardonnays pack a punch. There’s a Chardonnay from Lewis Cellars, for example, that weighs in at 14.7%. So white wine lovers have to be just as careful as those who prefer a meaty Merlot.

Veuve Clicquot

In 1805, François Clicquot died. He had inherited a Champagne house from his father, and his widow (veuve in French), Barbe-Nicole née Ponsardin was left to run the company. And wow did she run it well. Under her direction, the company sold the first vintage Champagne, the first rosé Champagne and generally established sparkling wine from that region as the premier luxury drink.

If you visit the company now named for la Veuve Clicquot in Reims, you’ll learn all about the Grande Madame (yes, their top wines are named for her). You’ll get to see the cellars where the Champagne is aged and you’ll get to try some rather interesting examples of the Champagne-maker’s art. You won’t see vineyards or even well-tended gardens. The entry to the winery is simple and architecturally uninteresting. The caves are everything.

There is no tasting room as such. All visits include a guided tour of the caves with a sample of Champagne at the end. The caves are large openings within the tunnels, some of which date back to Roman times. Others were dug under Mme Clicquot’s reign. Many of them are decorated with sculptures and other artwork. The guide explains the making of Champagne, including the process of riddling, which Mme Clicquot also invented. (Riddling is the manual turning of the bottles to capture the dead yeasts from second fermentation in the neck of the bottle, to be expelled, leaving a clear beverage.)

The tour is interesting for a first-time visitor to a Champagne house (or even the better sparkling wine makers in the New World). Once you’ve seen it and heard about it, there’s not a lot of new information to gather. We will say that we appreciated the knowledge of the guide who showed us around and her ability to answer questions that weren’t on the script.

Guides serving Champagnes in the caves.

Veuve Clicquot offers four tours. One is of their basic Yellow Label and lasts an hour. Another similar tour focuses on rosé Champagne. We took the one that offered more interesting wines to taste and lasted an hour and a half. We must say that we were impressed by the depth and differences among the wines served. There is also a two-hour tour that includes aged bottles. The prices for the tours range from 36 to 160 euros. These prices have increased a bit since we visited only a few months ago.

So is it worth it to visit Veuve Clicquot. Yes, it is. For one thing, when you are there you are on the spot in which Champagne as we know it today – clear, sparkling, elegant, festive – was invented. For another, if you take a tour other than the Yellow Label one, you’ll get to experience otherwise unavailable wines in the caves. There is a lot to be said for authenticity. You can buy a bottle of Veuve Clicquot at home and you will enjoy it. You can also buy a postcard of the Mona Lisa. Same wine, same picture, but not the same experience.

Overtourism in and Near Wine Country

There was a recent article in the New York Times about the crowds that are overwhelming certain popular tourist locations, such as Dubrovnik and Venice. So this month’s Places to Visit article isn’t about a single destination, but rather about the crush of visitors in many of the sites that are fun for a day away from wine tasting. The subject brings up the famous aphorism attributed to Yogi Berra: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Dubrovnik in the summer high season. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

It is clear that wine tasting, as an avocation, is increasing in popularity, which in turn means more people in the wineries. At the same time, many wineries (especially in California, but also elsewhere) have moved to tastings by appointment, so they are able to control the amount of visitors and limit the staff required to serve them. All the same, traffic on the main arteries (Route 29 in Napa Valley, Main Street on Long Island’s North Fork, Via Traversa del Monti leading into Montalcino) can get rather busy. And then if you want to stop for lunch, say, around the square in Healdsburg or in the village of Chateauneuf du Pape, parking is nearly impossible.

Who are all these people?!?!

Well, they’re us…all of us. The same people who enjoy sampling fine wines where they are made also enjoy fine dining, fine art and many of the finer things in life that make popular vacation spots so popular. Maybe there has just been an increase in the number of cultured people in society. Or maybe there are enough people who have the money, time and interest to go wine tasting in the more popular corners of Wine Country.

We think that the travel lust that was suppressed during the pandemic has sprung back. People are taking the trips they didn’t take in 2020, 2021 and 2022. We also believe that while the global economy hasn’t been kind to everyone, those who are might be interested in sipping Merlot in California or Bordeaux or Long Island are doing well and travelling more often.

A Napa Valley vineyard in March…out of season.

There are a few things that can be done to avoid the overcrowding. One is to travel out of season. If, for example, you would like to combine a trip to the Loire Valley with a few nights in Paris, there are going to be fewer fellow visitors between November and March than when the weather is warmer. However, it’s not as pleasant to see naked vines nor to exclude sitting in an outdoor café in winter. There are trade-offs for many things in life.

There is another way of looking at the problem. There is an austere beauty to seeing vineyards under a coating of snow. It’s pleasant share Christmas or the first inklings of springtime with the local folks. You get to feel more alike a local and less like a tourist. And out-of-season in the vineyards is often the height of the cultural season in cities. Trade-offs aren’t always bad.

Editorial: Not All Wine and Roses

The February edition of Power Tasting focuses on some of the problems we see with wine tasting today. Simply put, going wine tasting has become too expensive, at least in some areas. The levels of alcohol in many wines is increasing and popular tourist destinations in and near Wine Country are too crowded.

Power Tasting is generally about the pleasure of tasting wines in the places they are made. It’s something we enjoy doing and we seek to share that appreciation with other like-minded readers. So why are we pointing out some of the issues regarding wine tasting today?

We fear that wineries, especially those that consider themselves “top end” are creating a situation in which younger, less experienced visitors to Wine Country may be deterred from going. This may be acceptable to the wineries in the short term because more mature visitors are likelier to spend more money there. Wine tasting has become a revenue source for the producers and they want to optimize the return on investment in facilities and staff.

Trading today’s profits for tomorrow’s growth is usually a bad strategy. There is a need for a new generation to take up wine tasting – and by extension wine drinking – to become reliable customers, over time. We are highlighting some of the problems regarding wine tasting as a call for change. Not reversion to a different era in winemaking, but an eye towards future growth.

Is Wine Tasting Only for the Rich?

An article a few years ago in Forbes magazine, entitled “Napa Valley Wine’s Average Price Now Over $100 Per Bottle” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlsson/2023/08/31/napa-valley-wines-average-price-now-over-100-per-bottle/) was expanded on by a tour group. The new one is entitled “Is Napa Valley pricing itself out of the market for wine tourism and for wine?” (https://www.bkwinetours.com/travelog/napa-valley-pricing-itself-out/).

Photo courtesy of Blue Dollar.

The latter article crystalized in our minds a serious problem. We have been making wine tasting trips for all our adult lives. We understand that the days when wineries gave free tastings and even gave you a glass are long over. And really, there never was a good reason why they should give away their products, but now it seems to us that the pendulum has swung way too far the other way. Today, “the average tasting room tasting fee in Napa Valley is $128 for a “reserve tasting” and $81 for a “standard tasting”. And if you should choose to buy a bottle, the average price is $108.

We suggested that the pendulum has swung too far, but that’s probably incorrect. Pendulums swing both ways and we don’t see prices falling anytime soon. If a couple visiting Napa Valley wants to try, say, three wineries in a day and choose the standard tasting that comes to a cost of $500 or more. There are too many people for whom this is an unbearable vacation expense.

Why would the wineries in Napa Valley choose to restrict their market this way? For one thing, the figures quoted are distorted by the many top-end producers in that region who would prefer to limit their visitors to potential buyers who can afford to buy wines that may exceed $200 per bottle. They are not even eliminating a younger crowd, not with Silicon Valley so close by. Software zillionaires may be young but they are well paid. They may not appreciate “fancy” wines, but they do know how to spend their money on luxury goods.

Of course, there are many places in California to go wine tasting, so perhaps the rest of us can leave Napa Valley to the rich. But Sonoma County wineries’ average tasting fees are $72 for a reserve tasting and a standard one at a comparatively affordable $38. Other California areas, particularly Santa Barbara and Paso Robles are catching up. Some European destinations, such as Bordeaux and Champagne aren’t much less expensive.

Of course, it is still possible to search for less pricy wineries to visit and to vacation in less well-known areas of Wine Country. Wine is made in all 50 states, but not all the others can match California’s variety, quantity and especially quality. Perhaps a recession will bring prices down, but that’s a rather steep price to pay for more affordable wine tasting trips. Or maybe as the costs become too much for too many, the wineries may try some alternatives, such as seasonal pricing, encouraging visitors to come in the deep of winter or summer weekdays. We won’t count on it, but we will probably visit Napa Vally much less frequently.