Alcohol… Is the pendulum swinging?

Until recently (over the last 30 or so years) no one felt it necessary to discuss the level of alcohol (abv) in a wine. It was always assumed the abv was correct and in balance depending on the normal winegrowing and winemaking conditions of the vintage and growing area. But that all changed with the advent of the 100-point scale and the evolving market importance of wine critics such as Robert Parker and others in the late 1970s and 1980s.