dry wine and sugar content, does dry wine contain less sugar than sweet wine?

Answer 1

The simple answer is Yes. (but I can never resist making it complicated :)

What makes a wine 'dry' is that the sugars in the grape juice have been converted by fermentation into alcohol.

To make sweet wine the fermentation is halted before all the sugar is converted.

The sugar remaining in the wine is known as 'residual sugar', often shown as RS when you look at winery fact sheets. Even quite dry wines will have some RS.

However - when comparing two similar wines the impression of sweetness is affected by acidity and tannins in the wine. Thus with two wines that are both shown as dry, one may feel dryer on the mouth than the other.

And a very very sweet wine such as a German Eiswein may have such high levels of acidity it is quite mouth puckering.

Answer 2

Pontac, as always has this nailed - but I just want to comment on the first answer. Chianti is a dry red wine. Virtually all quality red wines are dry, with the notable exception being fortified wines such as Port. Some inexpensive, novelty red wines, like Arbor Myst, have residual sugar, and even added sugar, but they are the exception. So, when someone tells you that Merlot or Chianti or any other red wine is sweet, they are usually mistaken. Often fruit flavors in wines are mistaken for sweetness, but there really is no sugar there.

Answer 3

There exist several Residual Sugar Classification, one where the residual sugar concentration is expressed in grams per liter (g/L) and the other as a percentage of weight to volume. For example, a wine with 0.2% residual sugar contains two grams of sugar in a liter of wine, or approximately 1/4 ounce in a gallon.
PERCENTAGE CLASSIFICATION
(most wine tasters begin to perceive sugar at levels of 0.5 % to 0.7 %)
Dry wines are typically in the 0.2–0.3 percent range, off-dry wines in the 1.0–5.0 percent range, and sweet dessert wines in the 5.0–15 percent range.
G/L CLASSIFICATION
The wine is divided into three categories on the basis of sweetness. Dry wines were those under 7.5 grams per litre (g/l) of residual sugar . Medium/dry wines are those with up to 20 g/l of residual sugar. Sweet wines are those with over 20 g/l of residual sugar.

But there is a difference between the dryness or sweetness classification of a wine and the perception of it when you taste it.
The dryness or sweetness of a wine is a matter of perception. First we all have different tolerances of sweetness: what's sickly sweet to one person is pleasant to another. Second, sugar is only one component in wine, and our perception of a wine's sweetness or dryness depends on how it relates to the others components like alchohol, acidity and tannin:
# As a general rule, higher acidity levels make a wine appear drier (acidity doesn't reduce the level of residual sugar; it affects our perception of it).
# Many tasters confuse tannin, which could leave a dry feeling in the mouth, with dryness of a wine.
# High alcohol levels can increase the perception of sweetness
# Some tasters insist that what most people taste as sweetness is really fruitiness. A wine with intense fruit or floral character seems sweeter than its inherent sugar level, this is because fruitiness powerfully suggests sweetness or the lack of it.
# Even the serving temperature of a wine can affect how sweet or dry it tastes.
# The wine dryness depends also on what you eat with it: sweetness in wine is neutralized to some extent by sweetness in food, which can come from vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes, or ingredients such as honey and sugar.

So the measurable amount of residual sugar is only one part of any wine's texture and flavour and, to that extent, judging a wine by its sugar code can be misleading, the measurable amount of residual sugar in any wine doesn't really tell you how you're going to experience it.

Answer 4

yes it does. but in terms of residual sugars. you can often tell the difference when you taste them. say you like red wines. A Pinot Noir will be drier than an Italian Chianti and therefore the Chianti will be much sweeter.

Answer 5

candy wine is approximately 27.5 energy in line with ounce. Dry wine is approximately 24 energy in line with ounce. organic ethanol has approximately a hundred and twenty energy in line with ounce. something you may easy on fire and use as a gas is amazingly intense in energy. you're able to must be conscious of 11% or 14% of what. yet definite the better the alcohol content textile usually the better the calorie count sort.

Answer 6

simply stated, when sugar (in grape juice) and yeast come together they produce 2 things: alcohol and carbon dioxide (and a tiny bit of waste particles-not really important). the longer you let the fermentation go on the more sugar is used up and the more alcohol is produced.

Answer 7

yes. and if you want a dry wine; try shrizaz; anybrand. My favorite is yellowtail.