Ripe for Change

The American Association of Wine Economists (no less) has analysed climate data from1992-2009 and decided that the rise in the alcoholic strength of wine is primarily man-made. Climate warming might have lead to an increase of 0.9% but the actual average increase is 1.12%. At WineDrop Towers we never doubted that the rise was man-made. Even the French are paying much more attention to ripeness of grapes and now tend to harvest as late as possible. Fuller, riper wines are more crowd pleasing and
because of the riper fruit often have more alcohol. In particular Robert Parker,
whose palate is much reputed in America, likes big and forward fruit. Such has
been his influence that the French even have an expression for being mentioned
in his publications - être 'parkerisé'! The problem is the rest of us have been
well and truly parkerisé too and French wine is not like it used to be...