Dry Wine = Low Sugar = Better For You. (Yes, it's that simple!) 🤓
So what is it that makes a dry wine? A wine is considered dry when it has very little to no residual sugar left after fermentation - simply, the yeast have eaten all the sugar in the grape juice! When this happens, a dry wine is created.
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Dry Wine Scale for Still Wines
- Bone Dry: 0-1 g/L residual sugar, 0-.06 cals (Muscadet, Sancerre, Barolo)
- Dry: 1-10 g/L residual sugar, 0-6 cals (Vinho Verdes, Sauv Blanc)
- Off-Dry: 10-35 g/L residual sugar, 6-21 cals (Merlot, Pinto Noir, Cabs)
- Sweet: 35-120 g/L residual sugar, 21 - 72 cals (Muscadet, Sancerre, Barolo)
- Very Sweety: 120+ g/L residual sugar, 72-130 cals (Sherry, Port)
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Dry Wine Scale for Sparkling Wines
- Brut Nature: 0-3 g/L residual sugar, 0-1.8. cals
- Extra Brut: 0-6 g/L residual sugar, 0-3.6 cals
- Brut: 0-12 g/L residual sugar, 0-7.2 cals
- Extra-Dry: 12-17 g/L residual sugar, 7.2 - 10.2 cals
- Dry: 17-32 g/L residual sugar, 10.2-19.2 cals
- Demi-Sec: 32-50 g/L residual sugar, 10.2 - 30 cals
- Dolce: 50+ g/L residual sugar, 30+ cals
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Confusingly with sparkling wine, 'dry' is actually quite sweet. There's actually no requirements in the U.S. to label sugar content in wine. Acidity, tannins, & alcohol all change our perception of sweetness. Humans are unable to detect sweetness below 2 G/L RS.
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Vinho Verde wines are dry wines, so they have less than 9G of residual sugar per litre. However, a lot of out wines have less than 1.5G of residual sugar per litre!
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