THE WORLD OF WINE

CHÂTEAUX CHEVAL-BLANC AND AUSONE PULL OUT OF 2022 SAINT-EMILION CLASSIFICATION ARE FINE WINES GETTNG STRONGER? NEW STUDY CASTS LIGHT ON ABV

Châteaux Cheval-Blanc and Ausone are set to pull out of the 2022 Saint-Emilion classification. The prestigious estates, both original Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classé, said that the process has moved too far from “fundamental” issues.  “We planned to submit the documents,” Pierre Lurton, head of Cheval-Blanc, and Pierre-Olivier Clouet, technical director, told French wine publication Terre de Vins. “But the areas for evaluation went too far beyond what we considered fundamental: the terroir; the wine; the history.”  The estates have also removed their stablemates in the area, according to a report on wine-searcher. com. Château Quinaut l’Enclos, which like ChevalBlanc, is owned by Bernard Arnault of LVMH and the Frère family, while the Vauthier family, which runs Ausone, also removed Château La Clotte from the classification.  “It’s not that we feel that we are above the classification at all, or that we don’t need it, that would be awfully pretentious,” Pauline Vauthier, who runs Château Ausone, told Terre de Vins. “It’s just that we don’t see ourselves in the criteria.” O Red wines from Bordeaux, Tuscany, Piedmont and California all had higher alcohol levels on average in the decade between 2010 and 2019 than they did in the 1990s, a new survey has revealed.  Liv-ex, a global marketplace for wine, began recording reported ABV levels in 2020. It has reached 35,000 wines, with 20,000 of those verified by its warehouse team.  “This is a remarkable snapshot of significant changes taking place in some of the world’s most important fine wine regions,” said Justin Gibbs, Liv-ex co-founder and director. “These wines analysed represent wines traded on Liv-ex, a broad range of mostly fine wines.”  While relatively little change was recorded in Burgundy, California showed a sharp rise between 2000 and 2009, but then a dip in average ABV levels following that.  Alcohol levels in wine have generally been linked to sugar content in the grapes, as noted by a 2011 paper published by the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE), according to Decanter magazine. O