A dry, naturally low-alcohol Tuscan red to close out damp January
An old-school lighter wine to close out a not-quite-dry January.
Banfi “Col di Sasso”
Tuscany, Italy
$10.99
12.5% alcohol
PLCB Item #4127
Regularly $12.99
Let’s take a look at a wine that is naturally low in both alcohol and sugar but that doesn’t rely on newfangled tech or aim to be trendy. This Italian red blend from Tuscany is a throwback to a simpler time where lower alcohol in wine was the norm.
In our modern wine landscape, red wines routinely contain over 14% alcohol, and sugar content of 10 to 15 grams per liter is not unusual, especially in wines that are grown in the Americas and Southern Hemisphere. These traits give red wines a rich, velvety, and fruity character. But none of this was true a century ago, when red wines were much paler, lighter, drier, and more acidic than they are today.
Prior to the 1970s, red wines rarely reached even 13% alcohol because their grapes were harvested earlier at lower ripeness. Sugar content above 5 grams per liter was uncommon in finished red wines because it posed a risk of refermentation after bottling that could ruin the whole crop. With only 12.5% alcohol and a low four grams of sugar per liter, this wine comes pretty close to what would have been the historical norm on those metrics, not just in the 1950s, but in the 1850s and 1750s too.
The result is a wine that feels lighter in weight, decidedly drier and far more tangy than those we are used to today, but whose calories are naturally lower as well. If we went back in time, a wine like this one would look a lot paler and taste a lot different too, with more earthy funk. But here, the winemaker is relying on today’s technical advances in making a cleaner, fresher-tasting wine than used to be feasible, where the dominant flavors are of fresh-picked fruit like sour cherries and bitter cranberries. They’re just choosing to keep the alcohol and sugar in check as a means to make a wine their grandparents and great-grandparents might recognize.
Also available at:
Kreston Wine & Spirits in Wilmington, $10.49
Total Wine & More in Claymont, $10.49
Total Wine & More in Cherry Hill, $10.97