It's Time to Give High-Alcohol Wines a Chance at the Dinner Table
Wines such as Priorat, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and Amarone della Valpolicella can be just as structured and refined as their lighter cousins, and they pair excellently with food.
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High-alcohol wines get a bad rap—sometimes deservedly so, since not all grapes maintain flavor quality when they are allowed to ripen for the length of time required to build up enough sugar to end up boozy in the bottle.
Pinot noir, for example, tends to become soft and almost sweet-tasting at higher levels, and many wines all start to taste the same when that much alcohol and richness take over. A high-alcohol wine is generally defined as 14 percent, which is reflected in tax law—anything above that raises the excise tax on wine.