Over the past decades, alcohol levels in wine have been racheting up ominously. In the Napa Valley, the average climbed to 14.8 percent in 2001 from 12.5 percent in 1971. Even some once-delicate Oregon pinots are hitting 14 percent to 15 percent and taste more like syrah. . .

The practice is driven by the fashionable trend toward more concentrated, bolder-flavored wines that sacrifice balance for the all-important first impression. But recognizing that it doesn't matter how breathtaking the first glass is if consumers don't want to finish the bottle, some winemakers are looking for ways to get the flavor they want without the turbocharged alcohol levels.

The solution for many is to call lab wizard Clark Smith.

So when Smith, a winemaker and founder of consulting firm Vinovation in Sebastopol, California, invited me to experiment with finding the ideal level of alcohol in a particular wine, I was eager to try.

In the early 1990s, Smith developed a way to remove alcohol from wine with a process called reverse osmosis. Smith says he works with about 1,200 wineries worldwide and estimates that about 45 percent of all California premium wines are alcohol- adjusted.