This is an interesting news snippet: for several years, many winemakers have been under-reporting the alcohol levels of their wine:
Essentially, people like to think of themselves as sophisticates who go to art-house movies, even if in reality they’re much more likely to sit slack-jawed in front of some reality TV show. In the case of wine, they like the idea of buying something grown-up, with a relatively modest amount of alcohol; when it comes to drinking what’s inside, however, the more heat the better. So wine labels consistently show lower alcohol content than what’s inside.
This is especially true in the new world. Out of 43,908 tested new world wines, 24,561 under-reported their alcohol content, with the reds averaging 14.1% alcohol while claiming just 13.6%, and the whiles averaging 13.5% while claiming to be 13.1%.
Interestingly, the smaller number of wines which either over-reported their alcohol content or got it exactly right all reported pretty much the same levels of alcohol: 13.1% or 13.2% for whites, and 13.6% or 13.7% for reds. On average, it seems, wine will just say that it’s 13% if it’s white and 13.5% if it’s red, but in reality it’s likely to be higher than that.
