Climate change is transforming the traditional wine industries of the Old World. The new weather patterns seem to have reduced the risk of vintage failure. The 1930s, for example, with only two good years (neither truly great) and eight disasters rivalling each other for the crown of catastrophe of the decade, hardly casts a shadow across the consciousness of the modern vigneron. For them, the Bordeaux 2011s may prove their most difficult vintage to date. Not only were the weather conditions far from ideal, but the market's appetite for speculating on the upward price potential of investment-grade Claret appears greatly diminished.

Part of what has changed the game has nothing, on the surface, to do with climate: it is the seemingly insatiable appetite of new millionaires to buy the objects of desire designated by earlier generations as the rewards of wealth. However, whether this new group of buyers has come from Russia or Asia, they have both shared a preference for the style of wine Europe's changed climate has made easier to produce in bucket-loads.

Before the 1980s, the best wines of Bordeaux typically came to the market at 11%-12 % alcohol - even after sugar additions had lifted potential alcohols by at least 1%. To the modern palate, they tasted green and austere. Part of the reason old-style Claret needed to be cellared was that only time could soften its tannic grippiness. Longer and sunnier summers make the wines more accessible - in time for the change in fashion that drove winemakers actively to pursue this end result. SA, with its shorter, hotter ripening season, may have come to the game a little late (given the era of isolation), but the concept of "New World" ripeness has since been embraced with almost religious zeal. Our best reds of the 1960s rarely crossed the 12% alcohol mark. Now, 15% is quite common and even 16% hardly raises an eyebrow.

Most of the wines at the ripeness extremes are necessarily controversial though it's worth noting that not all low-alcohol wines are green, and not all high-alcohol examples are fully ripe. Excessive heat at harvest time will see the vine "shut down", thereby arresting the ripening process. The grapes will then dehydrate, increasing the sugar in the berry and therefore the potential alcohol of the wine.

Lately, many of SA's better winemakers have been wrestling with how to achieve appropriate ripeness without edging into the 14,5%-plus territory. Some have turned to viticulturists whose strategies include canopy management (the relationship between the vines' leaves and the fruit), water management, trellising and pruning - all for established vineyards - as well as clone and rootstock selection when it comes to new plantings. Others - such as Diemersfontein - use reverse osmosis or "spinning cones" technology to extract the "excess" alcohol once the wine has been made.

This is hardly "artisanal" winemaking, but it works. In my view, it beats California's solution of adding water to "re hydrate" the grapes.

Since there is greater tolerance of austere fruit flavours in white wines, which are meant to be refreshing, those seeking to avoid the alcohol hit have discovered that Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc are safe choices. Paul Cluver's Close Encounters Riesling is less than 10%, the low level aided by some unfermented sugar (which also spares it the steeliness of the German "trocken" style). Typically, Sauvignons hover around the 12% mark.

Cathy Marshall once produced a wonderfully peppery (rather than green) Shiraz at 12%. Hillcrest's Merlots (several of which have topped their class at the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show) sit at about 13%, as does the cellar's Hornfels Bordeaux blend.

These wines may seem a little tannic - especially to those brought up on the plushness of our high-alcohol reds - but they make up in freshness what they lack in texture.

From Business Day, 10 February 2012