Summer supping

Highfield Marlborough Riesling, The Doctors' Marlborough 9.5 Sauvignon Blanc & Brown Brothers Victoria Cienna. Photo / Babiche Martens

AH, the joy of sipping wine under a warm summer sun. Or the pain of it going straight to your head, leaving you gasping for a glass of water, especially if what you're drinking packs a considerable alcoholic punch, as many wines have increasingly done over the last decade. However, a backlash against these blockbusting styles has ushered in a new wave of lower alcohol examples that are ideally suited to summer drinking.

Rising alcohol levels have in part been the product of better viticulture, which has led to riper grapes and consequently more sugar to be converted into alcohol. In warmer climates and ones like ours where UV levels are high, sugar also tends to race ahead of flavours as the grape ripens, meaning winemakers often have to hold out until its potential alcohol is pretty high before picking.

When balanced by big flavours, relatively elevated alcohol levels are not necessarily bad news. However, if you're looking for a glass of something really refreshing that won't get you legless at lunchtime, then wines that are lighter on the alcohol are worth a look.

Riesling is a natural choice. As a variety that ripens at relatively low sugar levels and whose inherently zingy acidity works well when some sugar is left unfermented, it's able to make great wines with modest alcohol contents. And there are plenty of fine examples to choose from, being a grape and style well suited to New Zealand.

Other varieties prove more of a challenge. There's always the option to harvest earlier, which has seen some New Zealand wineries shave up to one per cent off the alcohol levels of their sauvignons over the last couple of years. However, pick a grape before it's ready and the result with red varieties in particular could be the unpleasantly herbaceous and astringent characters that our winemakers have been working for years to eradicate.

Most agree it's working with the vines to get them to develop good flavours at lower sugar levels that's the way forward. However, few have cracked this and making drinkable wines under 10 per cent from most varieties is near impossible.

That is, without a little help in the winery. There's always been the "hose-pipe method", where water is added prior to fermentation. It's illegal, but it does happen, although it's not used by quality-focused producers as it also dilutes a wine's flavours.

Technical wizardry, such as reverse osmosis and spinning cones, is also increasingly - if somewhat controversially - being employed to remove alcohol from the final wine. While some are vehemently opposed to this level of manipulation, it's now permitted in the EU, with France leading the way in the growing de-alcoholised wine sector.

Low alcohol wines can fall flat. As alcohol carries flavour and provides body and a perception of sweetness, some are a weak and watery shadow of their full strength counterparts. However, they can work, as the recently released 9.5 per cent sauvignon from Forrest illustrates.

Likely the lowest alcohol sauvignon to spring from New Zealand, it's already got tasters doing double takes and set tongues wagging. "It's made by a combination of techniques in the vineyard and winery," explains the man behind the wine, Dr John Forrest, who developed it in response to the growing demand for luncheon friendly wines. "We identified the flavours we wanted in the vineyard, then used a couple of smart little things in the winery to preserve these characters."

These smart little things may strike terror into the heart of purists, but as the low alcohol movement takes off around the world, they may increasingly be employed to help wines hit the levels that drinkers increasingly desire.


LIGHTER OPTIONS

Intense at 9.5 per cent
Highfield Marlborough Riesling 2008 $19
A fabulously fresh and focused riesling, with notes of talc and a sweetness that's balanced by a tongue-tingling hit of lime fused with mineral. At 9.5 per cent it ably proves that naturally lower alcohol wines don't have to lack intensity. (From Caro's.)

Surprising sauvignon
The Doctors' Marlborough 9.5 Sauvignon Blanc 2009 $22
With his latest innovation, Forrest has managed to make a 9.5 per cent wine that expresses plenty of attractive sauvignon flavour in its light citrussy palate laced with herb, fennel and blackcurrant. (From Bacchus Cellars, Blend, La Vino, Milford Cellars, Wine Vault, Mairangi Bay Fine Wines, selected branches of Liquorland, Duffy & Finns, Hastings.)

Sweet n low
Brown Brothers Victoria Cienna, Australia 2008 $14.95
Made from a new grape variety that's a cross between Spain's sumoll grape and cabernet sauvignon, this cienna's five per cent alcohol is achieved through stopping the fermentation before much sugar becomes alcohol. Stylistically straddling the line between wine and alcopop, it's sweet, soft, spritzy and full of berryfruit. (From Liquorland, many branches of New World and SuperLiquor.)