Supermarkets are resisting Britain’s taste for ever-stronger wine by introducing lower alcohol ranges, heralding a return to the weaker tipples that satisfied drinkers in years gone by.

Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer have all introduced lower-alcohol wines in recent months, each predicting a shift in demand away from the full-bodied grape to lighter, more forgiving vintages.

It amounts to a drinking man’s revolution. Introducing Tesco’s low-alcohol range, Dan Jago, head of beer, wine and spirits at the supermarket, said: “I’ve been banging on to suppliers about it for ten years. We are going to see more and more lower alcohol drinks and other retailers will follow our lead.”

M&S introduced a low-alcohol range in the spring. Yesterday a spokeswoman told The Times: “We are looking to extend the range, bringing in more wines at lower alcohol content. There is a growing demand for that.”

This month Sainsbury’s became the latest big retailer to follow suit by stocking a “Ten%” line of wines from the New World and Italy.

The tendency towards lower-alcohol wines runs against one of the most consistent trends in the wine industry in recent years. It is two decades since British wine drinkers were happily consuming gallons of Lambrusco and Liebfraumilch, wines which, whatever their other qualities, packed a lighter punch.

Since then, palates have turned towards more potent grapes, with the rise of New World wines catering for a demand for bold and flavourful reds with almost double the alcohol content.

If consumers encouraged vintners to produce stronger wines, so, perhaps, have changes in the growing and fermenting conditions with the arrival of hotter summers in recent years. In the Franschhoek Valley, one of three regions accounting for 95 per cent of South Africa’s wine production, temperatures have risen to up to 45C at harvest time.

“It adds an extra boost to the intensity of the wine,” said Andre Lourens, of Moreson Winery, a 35-acre vineyard. “The problem is, with the increase in alcohol it sometimes pushes the wine over 15 per cent.”

Revenue & Customs then classifies it as a “fortified wine”, which is subject to a higher tax.

“We can play with half a percentage,” Mr Lourens said yesterday. “Just under 15 per cent we can label 14.5 per cent, but if it rises to 15.5 per cent, we have to do reverse osmosis, to take some of the alcohol out of it.” The same increased alcohol content was “true of pretty much all the New World wines”, he said.

In Australia, research has shown that alcohol levels have increased from 12.4 per cent in 1984 to 14 per cent in 2004, with Shiraz and Grenache averaging as much as 15 per cent; a similar trend has been observed among Californian wines.

Old World wines have been affected, too. To counter the ripening influence of hot summers, vintners in the Prosecco region of northern Italy have resorted to harvesting up to a month earlier.

Mr Lourens argues that the higher alcohol content is indicative of a fuller flavour and wines that age better – a perception shared by many consumers. Nevertheless, in Britain, health concerns appear to be responsible for the start of a change in drinking habits.

With the Government focusing on middle-class wine drinkers in a campaign to reduce alcohol consumption, and doctors calling for pubs, clubs and restaurants to display warnings on how much alcohol is contained in a glass of wine, buyers see low alcohol wine as a new growth sector.

Julian Dyer, a wine buyer for Sainsbury’s, said that the change had come about because consumers were showing a preference for lower alcohol and a healthier lifestyle.

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