For The Love Of Port

One of the better written articles I've read on the topic of alcohol levels in wine. Maybe because the writer actually has a medical background...

Does a 14 percent wine really get you more drunk than one at 12 percent? It can. The table below shows the blood alcohol concentration for an average 130-pound woman who consumes two 5-ounce glasses of wine over 1 1/2 hours.

While the alcohol content of the wine rises 25 percent (from 12 to 15 percent), BAC goes up by 35 percent - above California's legal driving limit of 0.08 percent. As more alcohol hits the stomach, more of it gets through into the blood.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1KJ5BP.DTL

Not really a surprise, since the body processes out alcohol with time. If you drink a low enough % alcohol product very slowly, your BAC will never get above 0.02. But if you exceed that rate, it will go up. Given the data, Excel curve fits it to BAC = 0.0077 * abv - 0.0272. That seems to fit with what I've been told, that a 150 pound person processes out about 0.02 per hour. (The data was 130 pounds at an hour and a half.) Same disclaimer applies--everyone is different, and you shouldn't use this formula to justify your ability to drive, operate heavy machinery, etc.