The best lower-alcohol wines to help you avoid a hangover
It's a mistake to only consider volume when drinking wine – yes, obviously it's a good idea to switch from 250ml glassfuls to 175ml or, better, 125ml, and overall imbibe less, but if your wine is a stonking great shiraz or richly ripe chardonnay at, say 14.5% abv, the units of alcohol still quickly add up.
So if you're not going full no-alc, it's wise to pick wines which are naturally lower in alcohol as well – the level will always be displayed on the label, front or back, and it can come as quite a surprise to see how widely this varies.
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Wines made in cooler climates often come in at lower levels, as the grapes often don't get as ripe and therefore produce less sugar in the juice to turn into alcohol. In search of lower abvs, look to cool regions such as Germany's Mosel, northern Portugal's Vinho Verde, France's Loire Valley and England to tease out some lighter styles (in fizz, the lightest is usually north-east Italy's prosecco).
Some grape varieties naturally produce lower levels of alcohol, too – riesling holds sway here. Then there are winemaking and viticultural techniques which help achieve alcohol levels sitting nicely between 5-11% abv.
In New Zealand's Marlborough, for example, experiments to make naturally lower alcohol levels are proving successful; Forrest Wines' The Doctors' range of sauvignon blanc, riesling and pinot noir is produced using precision leaf-plucking in the vineyard, prompting grapes to ripen with plenty of flavour but lower sugar levels.
Meanwhile Yealands' Nat Christensen, who makes the Sainsbury's NZ wine below, says she 'selects blocks of vines which show good early flavour development and balance to harvest earlier to achieve the desired lower alcohol levels'.
In other cases, the fermentation is arrested, usually by chilling, so the alcohol level doesn't rise any further. That can usually mean there is more sugar left in the wine. So be careful when thinking about calories – lower alcohol means fewer of them in your glass, but higher sweetness clearly doesn't.
I've got dry, medium and sweet wine recommendations below – and at the risk of sounding school-marmy, to avoid a Bank Holiday hangover you will still have to moderate your intake of even these lighter-weight wines.
Why you can trust us
Susy is an award-winning wine and drinks writer, presenter and broadcaster who started her career at the Which? Wine Guide. She is a long-standing correspondent for The Telegraph. When not writing, she is an experienced judge and panel chair at UK wine competitions.
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