We live in an age of disruption. Apple have led us to expect phones to play music and take photographs, Uber and Airbnb have turned cars into taxis and homes into hotels, and the superstar chef Heston Blumenthal has made ice cream out of parmesan cheese. In the beverage world, we now have mint-flavoured vodka, tequila-flavoured beer, and passion fruit-flavoured cider. Why should wine be immune?
And of course it isn’t. When the owners of the Australian private equity firm Champ walk away with a billion Australian dollars profit after five or six years ownership of Accolade, a decent chunk of their success will be attributable to its Echo Falls fruit-flavoured wine-based drinks. In France, the recent boom in this category is credited with helping to stop the previously inexorable slide in Gallic wine consumption.
But the law is quite clear. None of these flavoured beverages can be sold as ‘wine’; anything carrying that legally recognised designation has to be made exclusively from grapes. Boosting the fruitiness of a Pinot Noir with some liqueur de cassis – as was once the unofficial custom in Burgundy – is frowned upon nowadays. If you want to follow Accolade’s profitable lead by jazzing up cheap wine with real or artificial fruit flavourings, you have to label the final product with a term such as ‘wine cocktail’ or ‘boisson aromatisée’.
As any ‘natural’ wine fan will tell you, however – and at some length – there are several ways in which the flavour of a drink labelled as ‘wine’ can be tweaked without breaking any rules. Commercial wines in the US in particular often benefit from the addition of a commercial concentrate called Mega Purple, while Europeans routinely exploit powdered tannins that can give a dull red wine crowd-pleasing chocolatey flavours.
Inexpensive wines made from grapes like Airén that have little aromatic character of their own can be miraculously transformed with the judicious use of yeasts and enzymes that are also used to tailor the style of premium Sauvignon Blanc.
For obvious reasons, no reference to these methods is generally made by winemakers and sales staff when talking to visiting media or potential buyers, but there is no hiding the most ubiquitous legal flavouring ingredient of all. Everyone from the bulk-wine suppliers of La Mancha to the illustrious cellars of Meursault have an array of oak barrels chosen for the intensity of their ‘toast’ and the character associated with the forest, nationality and cooper.
So far, so – relatively – uncontroversial.
A number of big producers have, however, recognised the potential of barrels to do a lot more than add toasty, vanilla-ey flavours. Taking a leaf from the whisky distillers who have historically added much-appreciated character to their spirit by ageing it in casks that were previously used for sherry, they have effectively reversed the flow. Big reds from brands such as Mondavi, Fetzer and Jacobs Creek are now being matured in bourbon barrels.
The notion of flavouring wine with American whiskey would almost surely send shivers up the spines of purists everywhere. The late great Robert Mondavi might spin in his grave at the idea of a Cabernet Sauvignon bearing his name being treated in this way, and I would be surprised if the former Jacob’s Creek chief winemaker Phil Laffer – who’s fortunately still with us – would be any happier. But the fact remains that in the US market at least, there are enough customers to make it worth producing this style.
Before anyone gets too precious, I’d like to turn the clock back three or four centuries, to the days when the British first decided that it was perfectly acceptable to add raw alcohol to wines in places ranging from the Douro to Madeira, Jerez and Sicily. I haven’t heard many people say that vintage port or Oloroso sherry is a vinous aberration, so I’m not sure why anyone should take a similar line against bourbonified Cabernet or Syrah.
Only time will tell whether these styles are a passing fancy like chocolate-flavoured wine, or a permanent addition to the repertoire of alcoholic beverages, along with such relatively recent inventions as Campari and cream liqueur. Nobody should try to persuade winemakers who entirely reasonably prefer not to treat their wines in this way to do so. On the other hand, if consumers are buying and enjoying wines that have been flavoured by bourbon or any other kind of barrel, let’s not demonize them – or the liquid in their glasses.
