The Joys of Low-Alcohol Wine

I really enjoy sipping a wine without having to worry about the impact of the alcohol. I call that one of the joys of low-alcohol wine.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of tasting WineShop At Home’s newly released Homage Cellars Lot No. 15 California White Table Wine. This wine is a blend of 73% Muscat Canelli, 19% Chenin Blanc and 8% Muscat of Alexandria. It is pure heaven, with refreshing aromas of pear, apricot, lemon zest, pineapple, lychee and orange blossom.

The wine’s sweetness is balanced perfectly with crisp acidity. This refreshingly easy-to-drink wine pairs beautifully with spicy Asian cuisine, smoked dishes and soft cheeses. It also makes a great aperitif.

Beyond its great taste, what is noteworthy about this wine is its alcohol content – 9%. Wow! This low-alcohol wine allows you to drink virtually the entire bottle without getting hit by the alcohol!

So what are the benefits of a low alcohol wine, besides avoiding the ill effects of consuming too much alcohol?

I did some googling to find Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s great article entitled “The lowdown on low-alcohol wines” where she interviews Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, wine and food writer and author of “Drink This: Wine Made Simple.”

Dara’s words are so insightful that I am going to quote her very liberally.

Dara says, “Low-alcohol wines are coming back. For the last 20 years, it’s been higher and higher alcohol percentages: cabernet sauvignons going to 16, 17 percent, zinfandels right alongside, table wines with the alcoholic strength of port.

“There’s sort of a theory about where they all come from, and they all come from one man’s taste: Robert Parker, Jr., the most famous wine critic in the world… Yet he loves what a lot of people call fruit bombs. Fruit bombs are just so jammy, so big, so plush — to get that kind of sweetness in the fruit, you have to leave it on the vines for the longest time. It gets sweeter and sweeter and sweeter, and then you have a ton of sugar. The way wine works, you use special yeast that turns the sugar in the grapes into alcohol. The sweeter the grapes, the more alcoholic the wine.

“The better it shows in one of these tastings where you’re sitting there with 100 bottles of wine in front of you. These wines that get the Parker Points — they get 96 points, 100 points — you see them on all the wine aisles on these little shelf talkers, little flags that wave at you with their beguiling numbers. These wines show so well in a giant tasting, but they do not show so well at your table. You put one of these cabernet sauvignons next to a roast lamb dish, and it’s just like putting Godzilla at the table with Bambi — just smash, crash, bam. You don’t get to taste what you’re eating; it’s too much alcohol.”

What a great image – Godzilla and Bambi!

Anyway, I encourage you to try WineShop At Home’s delicious new Homage Cellars Lot No. 15 California White Table Wine or any other low-alcohol wine. To place an order for WineShop At Home’s wine, please visit www.winetastingsandmore.com or call me at 650-714-7009.

Cheers!