To most drinkers, those alcohol by volume (abv) percentages on the wine label are just background noise – fine print that blends into the design. But what if that number isn’t exactly right? Could your 13.5% abv wine be closer to 15% abv?
That little number has more wiggle room than many realise. Thanks to federal regulations, various testing methods and shifting climate conditions, the abv listed on your favourite bottle may be more of an estimate than a guarantee.
Abv is the percentage of ethanol in each volume of liquid. A wine labelled 13.5% abv means that 13.5% of the liquid in that bottle is pure alcohol. The number influences more than just perception: higher-alcohol wines tend to have a fuller body and warmer mouthfeel, while lower-alcohol wines are typically lighter and more delicate. It also affects food pairing, ageing, and how quickly a sip might affect you.
But can you trust that number on the label? Mostly, but not exactly.
‘The alcohol number on labels must stay within the government’s guardrails,’ says Gordon Burns, co-founder and technical director of ETS Laboratories, one of the country’s leading wine testing labs. But there’s definitely room to manoeuvre.
The regulations give flexibility
In the US, wine labelling laws are regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), which allows for a margin of error: wines at or below 14% abv can legally be off by plus or minus 1.5%, while wines above 14% abv can be off by 1% in either direction.
In the European Union, the margin is tighter – just 0.5%.
The ranges exist by design to account for natural variabilities in winemaking. Rose Ballantine, associate winemaker at Revana Estate, says: ‘The percentage range really exists because lab analyses aren’t perfect, and if they are off at all or fluctuate, you aren’t locked into a number and [you] have a little bit of a buffer.’
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