Sweeter wines with spicy food is the ideal pairing. If you’ve never had a sweet Riesling or Gewurtztraminer with Thai or Szechuan food you should definitely try it. Sugar ferments into alcohol so when fermentation is stopped to keep the ABV low you’re left with more sweetness, and the contrast makes for a better pairing. Higher alcohol wines have fermented longer so have less sugar, and the alcohol leads to a more intense burn (think like taking a shot of vodka after eating something spicy but obviously less intense) while muting the flavors of both the food and wine. But thinking about that vodka analogy, “lower alcohol” wine is still in the 7-10% range, which is where most IPAs fall, so I guess even though they’re higher alcohol they aren’t high enough to imbalance the heat/flavor ratio