High Alcohol Level?

[Mr Robusto]

A friend of mine is making some great Zins, but his alcohol level is a bit too high (16+%).


How can you lower the alcohol level, without diluting the wine?

 

[grapeman]

Use less ripe grapes. You could dilute with water, but that would dilute the wine. You could try to finish off dry, but then it would be sweet. Only good way would be to use less hang time on the vines, but that changes the acids also. You could also mix the must with one lower in brix also before fermenting.

 

[patrick1]

Of course you send out bottles for different opinions I will make the effort to give you the very best opinion i can lol I had the same problem here and had another batch coming off with lower etoh content so i blended the two ( i love using that word for mixing ) and came out with 12 gallons of really nice wine ( this is the only hobbie that i can think of that you can drink most of your mistakes lol)

 

[Lodi Wino]

It's really a matter of location and weather patterns....you cannot go by brix alone. Unfortunately in our area we need longer hang times to get the right flavors which can mean higher brix and certainly can lead to high alcohol....most zins made in our area flirt with the 16% mark which in some wines can mask the great flavors.....they are expirementing right now with different types of yeast to knock out alcohol maybe up to 1%, other tech savy wineries have been expirementing with reverse osmosis to strip out the alcohol, which can also strip out the good stuff - but then they blend back together to get to the 'sweet spot'.....theories abound