The Rise and Fall of Cabernet

[Tastevin]

Hello Wineguruchgo, I started drinking wine on a regular basis back in the mid 50’s when I got my first job in the wine trade. Here, the countries of origin then were mainly France, Germany, Italy, Spain (a little table wine, but mainly Sherry), Portugal (a little table wine, but mainly Port), South Africa (a little table wine, but mainly imitation Sherry), My memory of the quality of those wines of the 40’s – 70’s is not good enough now for me to honestly compare like for like with more recent vintages. Even if I could compare I’m not sure it would prove anything. What I will say however, is that overall I have been fortunate enough to drink the wine of something like 60 vintages back to 1878, and have enjoyed them immensely. In my opinion, and hopefully not seeming patronizing, I believe the quality of New World wine, and France’s ‘lesser’ areas (the Midi for instance), is generally infinitely better than it was say 10 years ago, let alone way back. Wineglut, certainly reverse osmosis has a lot to do with consistency of type and flavour we are now experiencing, but I’m not convinced it necessarily improves quality. I don’t know how extensively the practice is used, it would be interesting to know. I do know it is used by many producers in California, and some in Australia and France (actually I’m not sure it’s even legal in France, bearing in mind their Appellation laws). Regarding the addition of sugar (chaptalisation) to the must, absolutely correct. In France in years where there is insufficient natural sugar in the grape ‘must’ the producer is allowed to add up to the maximum (forgotten what that is) amount per hectare of vines, during fermentation. However, they must not increase the eventual alcohol level by more than 2% (I think). I use the present tense because this is still allowed. Back to reverse osmosis and high alcohol levels if I may, I said the other day that it looks as though high levels are here to stay. Well, Foodie’s somewhat puzzling remark about measuring alcohol content, and Wineglut’s mention of reverse osmosis brought it to mind that R.O. can be used to reduce alcohol content, so maybe levels will be lowered eventually. Or will they? Perhaps the wines we are buying have been reduced already? Still on the subject of alcohol, the law relating to wine strength is different here. %ABV has to be shown on the label, even for Table Wine, and it may only differ by 0.5%, either way, to that shown on the label. I would guess that for identical EEC wines that are available in your country and here the % shown is as accurate. Next week I will be opening a bottle of Ch. Leoville-Las-Cases1994. Gosh, I do hope they haven’t used reverse osmosis on it. T