Too Sweet to be Invited to Dinner

a provocative article by Eric Asimov in the New York
Times on 7/19/06, reprinted with minor editing.


It’s happened so many times that I’ve lost count. I’m having dinner with another person, trying to choose a wine that will complement the odd combination of dishes that we’ve ordered - meat, fowl, fish, or whatever.

Back in the old days, 10 years or so ago, California Pinot Noir was one of my go-to wines. Its reputation was poor, and critics lambasted American Pinot Noir as a pale imitation of Burgundy, but I found it a great food wine, light-bodied enough to go with fish, yet intense enough to match up with meat. Not unlike Burgundy, in fact, but a lot cheaper.

Not anymore. California Pinot Noir has shot up in stature. Its popularity has skyrocketed, and the critics now love it. But on the dinner table? I rarely look at Pinot Noir nowadays. Not only because it’s gotten so expensive, but because many modern Pinot Noirs have lost the dry, lithe character that made the wine so fine a partner with food.

Why is this? Far too often now, Pinot Noir tastes sweet and has a heavy, almost syrupy character. And while Pinot Noir is the most glaring example, it’s often true, too, of many other high-end, supposedly dry red American wines like Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel.

Now sweetness itself is not intrinsically a problem. Some of the greatest, most versatile food wines in the world are sweet, like German Rieslings and demi-sec Chenin Blancs from the Loire. But those wines have more than sweetness going for them: they have balance. The sugar is balanced by acidity, which provides structure and liveliness, allowing the wine to be both sweet and refreshing.

The American red wines, on the other hand, are meant to be dry, like their French forebears Burgundy and Bordeaux, which are dry by definition. Burly Zinfandels have always flirted with a tinge of sweetness, but nowadays they too taste sweeter and sweeter. I’ve particularly noticed this problem in Pinot Noirs from the Santa Lucia Highlands and Santa Barbara County on the central coast of California, in Napa Valley Cabernets, and in Zinfandels from all over.
I’m not the only one bothered by this. Dan Berger, a critic who publishes Dan Berger’s Vintage Experiences, a weekly newsletter, called the rising sense of sweetness in American red wines “a sad and pernicious trend. They’re impressive wines, but the word impressive is not always a positive word,” he said in a telephone interview. “There’s lots to them, but maybe more flavor is less good. What you want is a harmony of flavors.”

Dry wines that are not really dry are an American tradition. As the old saw in the wine industry has it, “Americans talk dry, but drink sweet,” and the history of American wine consumption bears that out.

Popular mass-market wines from California, like White Zinfandel and Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay, have always had more than a subversive touch of sweetness, while the best-selling Champagne in the United States is Moët & Chandon’s White Star, a cuvée made only for the American market that is sweeter than the typical brut Champagne.

The rationale has always been that the American palate is shaped by the sugary soft drinks, ketchup, and breakfast cereals of the childhood pantry. Modestly sweet wines, therefore, help a wine-wary population make the transition to more classically dry wines, especially if that population believes it is drinking dry wines.

Sweet wines were associated with low-status fortified wines, like Thunderbird, or the sort of syrupy Concord grape wines that appear on many kosher tables. But now, apparently, the sensation of sweetness has triumphed over the belief that fine red wines were dry bordering on tart and even somewhat austere. The changing character of the wines may even change the way people think of drinking wine. Justin Smith of Saxum Vineyards, a small but acclaimed producer in Paso Robles, California, calls them “social wines.”

“These wines aren’t meant to go with food,” he said. “They’re for when you get home from work: you open a bottle, pour a glass and sit with it out on the deck.” In other words, they’re to be consumed like cocktails, which they resemble in another way, too. Most of these wines are high in alcohol, at least 14.5 percent and often above 15, which contributes to the impression of sweetness even if they are not actually sugary.

California red wines are made in a fruitier style than they used to be, which also contributes to an impression of sweetness, said Dr. Susan E. Ebeler, a flavor chemist in viticulture and oenology at the University of California, Davis. Grapes nowadays are allowed to ripen on the vine much longer than 10 or 15 years ago, resulting in much higher concentrations of sugar at harvest. More sugar requires longer fermentation, which produces more alcohol and more glycerol. Dr. Ebeler said glycerol, whose name is derived from the Greek word for sweet, also contributes to a perception of sweetness.

Let’s see: fruitiness, high alcohol, and higher glycerol. Add it up and what do you have? “It could be the sum of the parts,” Dr. Ebeler said. While wines made in this style may try to appeal to the American sweet tooth, they may also reflect the wine business’ dependency on high ratings from critics who taste dozens of wines at a time. “I think it’s a conscious effort on the part of some winemakers to make the wine taste supple, soft, and hedonistic,” Mr. Berger said. “I think this style of wine is designed to be a home run. You don’t see very many people bunting. The more flashy, expressive style tends to be the style that catches people’s eye.”

Of course, not all California red wines fall into this sweet category, not by a long shot. I’ve enjoyed many excellent reds in the last year, including recently Etude’s 2003 Heirloom Carneros Pinot Noir, which was full of complex sweet fruit aromas and flavors held together by a firm structure.

But the Etude was in marked contrast to two sweet Pinot Noirs that I could not drink with dinner. One was the Loring Wine Company’s 2004 Rosella’s Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands. The other was an ’04 Cuyama River in the Santa Maria Valley from Taz Vineyards.

Whatever else wine is, ultimately it must be at home on the dinner table. Obviously Americans enjoy sweet beverages with food, whether Coca-Cola, White Zinfandel, or this year’s top-ranked Pinot Noir or Cabernet.

But for the long term, red wine that seems sweet runs the risk of becoming a marginalized beverage, served on the deck before dinner, yes, or maybe afterward with cheese or chocolate, like port. Then it will be time to stop and praise the winemaker’s impressive achievement, and reach for something else to drink.