Less alcohol doesn’t have to mean less flavour

I don’t want you to think I’m a problem drinker, but I have to say that for me, low-alcohol wine almost always tastes like low-alcohol wine. The “almost” is there because there are a few well-flavoured low-alcohol wines out there. It depends a bit on your definition of low alcohol.
The subject arises because there’s a big drive on in some northern hemisphere countries – Britain and France leading the way – for winemakers to supply such wines. We read that retailers are “gearing up to stock a wider range of low-alcohol wines in the run-up to Christmas, in response to growing consumer demand and increasing health concerns about drinking”.
Research apparently tells them that British drinkers are knocking back more units of alcohol than they were nearly 10 years ago because of the prevalence of extra-strong lagers and high-alcohol wines. It suggests that consumers who want to buy low-alcohol wines prefer better-tasting products.
Important changes in European regulations, which have traditionally hampered the growth of this market, are also set to increase the pace of change. It is now legal to sell wine which has had its alcohol by volume reduced by up to 2 per cent through the use of two specialist techniques, reverse osmosis and the “spinning cone” method.
There’s a catch and it is that the processing required to lower the alcohol content of wine tends to affect its flavour. But figures from the market researchers Nielsen show that the broader category of low-alcohol drinks, which includes no-alcohol beers, wines and ciders, has seen sales grow 11 per cent in the past year.
The fact is that around 10 per cent alcohol by volume can deliver some lovely wines (e.g. Hunter semillon.)Lower than that you can expect the wine to have some degree of sweetness and there’s nothing at all wrong with those great German rieslings or indeed our local moscatos.
I like this hint, from somewhere in cyberspace: The single best way to create a wine that tastes like wine but has less alcohol in it is to add water, just like you do in the pub when you order a spritzer. This way, you take a good, balanced wine and simply dilute it. It won’t be quite so perfect but you can at least still taste the structure and detail of the original drink.
Here are three widely differing and delicious Australian wines, low in alcohol:
• Mount Eyre 2009 Three Ponds semillon is a fine example of how well this grape does in the Hunter _ grassy, lemony, vibrant with a crisp dry finish and a moderate 10.5 per cent alcohol by volume. Around $15
• Terra Felix Moscato Gold 2009 is sweet has low alcohol (5.7 per cent) and zippy and “comes in a clear glass bottle to let the golden hues shine through’. Last year’s vintage all went to China and sold out. Around $30.
• Jean Pierre sparkling brut delivers light-bodied fruit aromas, quite low alcohol (11 per cent), fresh and fruity without being overly sweet, crisp finish and a moderate price. Around $7.


Melba range worth singing about

Any entrepreneur who puts the words wine and opera in juxtaposition or even close to each other may be fairly confident that your reporter will make something of it. Which is why de Bortoli scores a mention here with its Melba range.
You will know a bit about Dame Nellie: this country’s first and one of its greatest operatic divas when that word meant rather more than it does in today’s gossip magazines.
She was pretty much queen of a big part of the western operatic stage and social scene for decades. Born Helen Porter Mitchell, she was the first Australian to gain international fame as a classical musician. Early on she married Charles Nisbett Frederick Armstrong, the son of a baronet, who managed a property near Mackay. They had one son, George. Although theoretically the marriage lasted almost 20 years, in practice it was over within two. Melba majestically moved on.
On one of her return trips to Australia in 1909, she bought a property in Coldstream, Yarra Valley and called it Coombe Cottage, after a house where she had stayed while singing at Covent Garden. She retired in 1928, died in 1931 and was buried in Lilydale cemetery.
The Melba range, de Bortoli tells us, is in her honour. Questioned about who is the opera-lover in the company, chief winemaker Steve Weber nominated his wife Leanne (nee de Bortoli). On more technical matters: “These wines are our interpretation of cabernet blends made in claret styles. “We are using most of eh Bordeaux varieties as well as syrah, sangiovese and nebbiolo to produce three distinct styles of claret, some of them closer to the cabernets from Bolgheri than from Graves. All wines are deliberately fine and medium bodied".
The wines are: 2007 Melba reserve, described as typical of the classical styles made famous by the valley’s pioneers. Touch of merlot. It is made to be long-living and comes in a heavy bottle. $60 and well worth it. 2007 Melba Lucia blends cabernet and sangiovese to produce a wine “that is quite Mediterranean in style"’. Dame Nellie must have done a pretty good Lucia di Lammermoor, as of course did Dame Joan, happily still with us. Delicious at $31. 2008 Mimi, she of the cold hand in La Boheme, inevitably another Melba role.
And by the way, Mimi’s real name, she tells us, is Lucia. Here are cabernet, syrah and nebbiolo, combining to produce a distinct “elegance, savouriness and brood’’. Romantic and lovely. $31.