This post is a slight diversion I suppose.
It doesn't - yet - have any direct relevance to champagne, in fact it's more to do with wine, and believe it or not, with gin. Anyway, it's something I felt was worth line or two.
I spotted a couple of things recently about low alcohol wine.
First I saw an advert for a range of low alcohol wines launched by Marks & Spencer ( a well-known and above average food and clothing store in the U.K.)
Then I saw some market research finding that suggested that wine drinkers would be happy to drink low alcohol wine providing that the taste was the same as the higher strength version. That's a fair enough statement I guess, but the catch - and it's a big catch - is finding a low alcohol wine that tastes anything like wine at all and not insipid grape juice.
I suppose there can be no denying that there's a lot of interest at the moment in eating and drinking more healthily, and quite rightly too, but if you're anything like me and, I suspect, most wine lovers, you find the whole concept of low alcohol wine, or even worse, low-alcoholic champagne just bizarre.
I do actually find some wines with abv ( alcohol by volume ) of 14% and more to be a bit overpowering, but I simply drink less of them. I'd rather drink less ( much less even ) of the normal strength versions rather than switch to low alcohol substitutes.
As for champagne, whether it's rosé champagne, vintage champagne, or regular, non-vintage champagne, the abv is always about 12% and this is on the low side compared with many other wines and I find this just about perfect.
Now I have to admit that I haven't tried any low alcohol wine recently and it may well be that modern science has discovered ways to make them taste like the real thing, but I am highly sceptical to say the least.
The low alcohol wines and beers I remember drinking in the past were so dreadful that they put me off for life. It's going to take a lot to convince me that the latest offerings are any better, and this is where I get to the bit about gin.
A while ago I worked for Beefeater Gin in London and a very good gin it is too, in my opinion.
The head distiller, a man by the name of Desmond Payne, once told me that a fairly high degree of alcohol is essential in order to get really expressive flavours and aromas.
In the case of Beefeater Desmond insisted that minimum abv was 40% and that's why he was so appalled by the decision by Gordon's to reduce the strength of their gin to only 37.5%. Desmond was convinced that the decision was taken primarly so that there was less excise duty payable and therefore more profit for Gordon's.
In fact we did a lot of taste tests of various gins at various strengths to test the validity of the theory - tough job but someone had to do it - and it was crystal clear that the lower the alcohol content the less pronounced the flavour of the gin.
I've no reason to believe that this is any different for any other type of alcoholic drink, including wine and champagne, so don't expect me to tell you anytime soon that I've started to buy champagne that is low in alcohol.
If and when I find a low-alcohol champagne I'll let you know and it would be great if you would do the same for me. Until then I'm sticking to the real thing.
Jiles
P.S. If you haven't yet entered our Win A Week In Champagne competition, there's still time to do so.
For details go to
http://bit.ly/champers
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