Comments on: Wine, alcohol, and tax – in Wine & Spirits magazine

By: Disposition, acquisitions, dentists and alc levels — sipped & spit | Dr Vino's wine blog

Tue, 17 May 2011 20:48:25 +0000

[...] the results of an extensive story I did for Wine & Spirits magazine is now online. (See our summary discussion.) In the story, we analyzed 84 randomly selected wines for alcohol levels and had some surprising [...]

By: Jon Bjork

Jon Bjork — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:21:02 +0000

Yes, 1.5% is a pretty major tweak, but remember that broader range is below 14% in the “less hot” zone, where I think most of us are more tolerant anyway.

By: Robert McIntosh (@thirstforwine)

Robert McIntosh (@thirstforwine) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:37:31 +0000

… oh, and to @jon bjork – a 1.5% change in alcohol levels in a finished wine is a pretty MAJOR tweak, don’t you think?

it’s all about systems being bent over time to suit the industry (at various levels) rather than the consumer, no?

By: Robert McIntosh (@thirstforwine)

Robert McIntosh (@thirstforwine) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:27:06 +0000

interesting to see the results when they come out. In part this is “caused” by a system that allows a variation of 1.5% … yet then insists on printing numbers in increments of .1%

I’d be particularly interested in the differences between US & EU bottles

By: Alan Baker

Alan Baker — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:11:48 +0000

Alcohol levels do change over time and vary from barrel to barrel. I recently had tests done to determine alc for inclusion on the label and found a variation in lots that seemed to indicate that the finished wine would be at 14.1% ABV. That is what I put on the labels, and after blending the lots (no other modifications were done other than filtration since it was a white wine) the finished wine in bottle tested at 13.8%
Thus we’ll pay the higher tax rate. It is a small run of 100 cases so the tax hit won’t be huge. I’m a stickler for accuracy in labeling but I can easily see how a big winery would be tempted to shoot on the low side of expectations if they are close to the boundary.

Alan – Cartograph wines

By: Jon Bjork

Jon Bjork — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:39:36 +0000

Erika, while it is true that running an alcohol in the lab is quick, the issue is mainly the lead time in printing labels. Many label companies during the busy bottling times of the year can take 6 weeks to print labels. Some require that a TTB Certificate of Label Approval be issued before making the printing plates. The approval process often tacks on another week. During what could be a 7 week period, winemakers may have made last-minute blending tweaks that will have altered the blend.

By: Erika Szymanski

Erika Szymanski — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:19:36 +0000

Does anyone know why the famous fudge factor exists? Alcohol concentration is fast and easy to measure with a good old-fashioned ebulliometer to greater than 1.5% accuracy. Is it to allow for variation within wines bearing the same label? For historical reasons?

By: personalwine (personalwine)

personalwine (personalwine) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:04:29 +0000

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@drvino pulls in an awesome blog post "Wine AWESOME, "alcohol" YAY, "TAX" damnit I hate taxes.... [link to post] enjoy

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By: evandawson (Evan Dawson)

evandawson (Evan Dawson) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:42:21 +0000

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Should we believe wine alcohol numbers? Great and important work from @drvino. [link to post]

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By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:41:40 +0000

Not surprising. The producers of the French wines I import are allowed to round down to the nearest 0.5% on their labels. So if the wine is 13.9 they can put 13.5 on the front label — and as the importer I have to have the same number on my own label. If I ask the producer to remake the front label, it costs a lot of money. Some of them don’t put that information on the front, which is great, but most of them do.

By: Lisa Mattson

Lisa Mattson — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:23:12 +0000

Tyler,
Great post. Just got my issue of Wine & Spirits. Looking forward to reading the article.
Best,
Lisa
The Journey of Jordan: a wine and food video blog

By: Dr. Vino

Dr. Vino — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:40:37 +0000

@1winedude The TTB tracks wines, bottled and bulk.

@Mike Veseth – We did try to test some hypotheses but also tried to get a somewhat representative sample of the wine marketplace in general, split between foreign and domestic. However, we were limited to the wines the magazine had on hand. Hopefully we can do further tests in the future.

@Jon Bjork- Thanks for mentioning the Small Producer’s Tax Credit and its implications for producers.

Thanks for the interest!

By: winetonite (Ed Thralls)

winetonite (Ed Thralls) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:20:01 +0000

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Wine, alcohol, and tax in Wine & Spirits magazine [link to post] (via @drvino)

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By: Jon Bjork

Jon Bjork — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:05:04 +0000

This data makes sense to me. I doubt you’ll see the percentage of wines over 14% alc by vol increasing much more, simply because the majority of wine is produced for the mass market where the consumer is more interested in smoothness and sweetness with little sharpness in the wines. That would allow the large wineries to keep alcohol levels down under the 14% tax cut off.

I think we’ve been seeing the rise in alcohols more on wines from boutique wineries that are more sensitive to critics’ scores and a quest for ripeness.

Note that most boutique wineries can take full advantage of the TTB’s Small Producer’s Tax Credit, which saves 90 cents per gallon, driving the taxes down to only $0.17/gal for under 14% and $0.67/gal for over 14%.

Wineries also usually have to pay excise taxes to their home state. In California all wineries pay $0.20 per gallon, regardless of tax class. Note that a boutique winery is therefore paying more to California for under 14% wines than to TTB.

And to finish my geekiness… only the first 100,000 gallons removed from bond can receive any Small Producer Credit. Wineries producing over 250,000 gallons per year cannot take this credit.

By: Mike Veseth

Mike Veseth — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:02:19 +0000

It is a great article, Tyler. Nice work. Can you answer a question about the wines that were tested? As I recall, the French wines were mainly from Burgundy with nothing from Bordeaux. Was that done on purpose? Bordeaux is where I would expect the alcohol to show up more than Burgundy. It seems like comparing Napa with Bordeaux would be interesting.
Best,
Mike