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Hugh Johnson, one of the UK’s top wine experts has “declared war” on the fashion for ever-greater alcohol content in our favourite liquid, branding the new super-strength vintages as “boring” and without “useful purpose”.


The Australian

“Wines that 20 years ago had 12 or 12.5 degrees of alcohol may now pack a punch at 14.5 or 15 degrees or even more; balance disappears, and drinkability is thought wimpish,” he writes. “Like human bodies packed with steroid-driven muscle, these wines do not fulfil any useful purpose; they are merely made to win competitions … Mostly what excess alcohol does is muddy the flavours and blur the aromas, so you lose definition and focus and complexity.”

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