In last week's wine column in The Seattle Times, Paul Gregutt wrote an insightful piece entitled, "The new wine buzz: moderate alcohol levels". Gregutt provides a useful overview of the downside of too much alcohol in wine and also attempts to dispel the notion that wine critics are to blame for high levels of alcohol.

It appears the motivation for this column came from Gregutt's readers, who, like me, have been requesting that he start including alcohol levels in his wine reviews. Although he has written about this need in the past, this was the first column I have seen where each wine reviewed includes its "listed alcohol".

Kudos to Gregutt for taking this important step, although its unclear whether or not this transparency will continue due to space constraints. With readers requesting this information, I think it's incumbent on the editors at The Seattle Times to allocate more space to Gregutt's column so he can include this detail.

Regardless, I hope more wine writers, columnists and bloggers start disclosing alcohol levels in their reviews. Since last January, I have been beating the drum on this topic, as consumers will clearly benefit from having this data point to distinguish wines according to their taste preferences.