Getting Serious Alcohol Levels in Wine

[KMP]

I was amazed to learn recently that beer can be made with alcohol (by volume) of over 20%. The Samuel Adams Utopias weigh in at 27%. Impressive until you learn that BrewDogs Sink the Bismarck! checks in at 41%! That alcohol is achieved because alcohol freezes at lower temperatures than water and so by freezing the beer you can selectively remove water (I guess as ice) from the solution thereby increasing the alcohol concentration.

This sounds like an ideal way to get more alcohol into Barossa Shiraz, and more flavor. Sounds like the perfect (completely unnatural) wine to send off to Andrew Jefford as a farewell gift.

Mike

[Waiters Friend]

G'day Mike

Isn't this the same technique they use to make icewine? Especially in the absence of botrytis to shrink the grapes, and a difference to 'cane cut'? The Frogmore Creek (Tas) is an excellent example of this.

Cheers

Allan

[KMP]

G'day Mike

Isn't this the same technique they use to make icewine? Especially in the absence of botrytis to shrink the grapes, and a difference to 'cane cut'? The Frogmore Creek (Tas) is an excellent example of this.

Cheers

Allan

Allan,

I believe icewine (or eiswein) is usually made by pressing frozen grapes to produce juice with less water content (as the water is frozen) but there is no alcohol there until the juice is fermented. However the volume of juice is very reduced so on a volume basis the resulting alcohol would be higher if all the sugar was converted to alcohol. I don't know of an icewine fermented to dryness but I'll bet someone has made one somewhere. From what I can see of the Frogmore Creek Ice Riesling they freeze the juice to a cretain sugar level and then ferment, but not to dryness.

I guess the easiest way to increase alcohol in any wine would be to freeze some until its slushy (in a container that won't break) and then just pour off the unfrozen liquid. That should be high in alcohol, and probably tastes pretty bad as well.

Mike

[Wizz]

Iv never heard if an eiswein fermented dry, but I was told last week of a German producer who fermented a beerenauslese dry. That would be some special yeast to survive the whole process and the resulting alcohols! eiswein is usually between 5 and 8% Alcohol (in Germany anyway).

Who wants a 41% ABV beer anyway?

[KMP]

....................

Who wants a 41% ABV beer anyway?

They must be out there. The first lot of 500 bottles sold out - it costs 40 pounds for an 330 ml bottle!

Mike

[KMP]

Just as an update.

BrewDog again topped the list of high alcohol beers with "The End of History". They made 12 bottles which were sold starting at 500 pounds each. Not to be outdone, Jan Nijboer, a Dutch brewer, at 't Koelschip (The Refrigerated Ship), made "Start the Future". It comes in a one-third litre bottle for 35 euros and is 60 ABV!

Mike

[Roscoe]

Or you could leave out the hops and distil it rather than freeze it.

[daz]

Or you could leave out the hops and distil it rather than freeze it.

Sounds a bit like scotch whisky.

[Roscoe]

Aye, you're a canny one.
Well spotted, daz.

[smithy]

Or through a process called Reverse Osmosis you can selectively remove water from wine pushing up the alcohol. Widely used in Bordeaux in the last few years, but there are also Aussie red winemakers doing it.
I don't..don't like it!
Enviromentally ugly.
That said...the method is widely used in reverse. Selectively remove alcohol instead.
I don't do that either.
Give us a natural tasting wine any day...wheter its 12.5 or 18 % alc..so long as its balanced who gives a toss?