In article ,
David Rance wrote:

And, of course, chapitalisation is almost always used, which is a
pretty sure sign of less than optimal ripening

Well, I rarely have to resort to chaptalisation (sic!) - but it's not
unknown. ;-)

I stand corrected :-)

We will never produce heavy wines. UK wine will always be lighter with a
rather lower alcohol content. For myself, I'm content with a wine of
around 9% to 10% which I can readily produce most years. But if that's
not enough for the British public then obviously chaptalisation will
take place. but that, in my view, is cheating.

I agree. Personally, I find that the high alcohol content of the
drinks with strong flavours to be a disadvantage.

Chaptalisation is allowed in France only to bring the sugar content up
to what one would expect in an average year for that AOC area. Thus it
wouldn't be used all that often. If it happens in the UK do the
wine-makers add the other flavours necessary for a heavier wine? I have
strongly suspected that they do this to UK red wines as the UK cannot
ripen red varieties well enough.

I don't know. Also, I don't know exactly how many do it because, as
I said, most were rather evasive or claimed things that weren't true
(as they did in California, too!)


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.