More and more people are looking for wines with a lower alcohol content. And by ‘lower,’ you can mean anything from 12.5% and below.
Sophie and Jean-Christian Bonnin, a winemaking couple in Anjou in the Loire Valley at the family property Domaine Famille Bonnin, focus on 8.5–9%. Their idea is to achieve this lower alcohol content naturally.
They absolutely do not want to de-alcoholise their wines. They want to make real wines with lower alcohol content. And it is possible, they say, if you choose the right grape varieties, keep the vinification cool and stabilise the wine with filtration and sulphur.
In 2024, they made a red gamay, a white grolleau gris, and a rosé grolleau noir. These are grapes that ripen early and have low sugar content. It would never work to use the more traditional Loire grapes, such as chenin blanc and cabernet franc.
All three grape varieties were harvested early with low potential alcohol content. After a quick, cool fermentation, the white and rosé wines were aged on their lees to add body. The white wine has 4 grams of residual sugar, the rosé wine 7 grams.
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