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+--- Thread: list of driest to sweetest--red and white (/thread-18973.html)
- Grubby - 03-15-2001
I am just looking for a list of both red and white wines, from the driest to the sweetest. I don't need anything elaborate--just a list.
Unfortunately I wanted it before we left on our trip tomorrow, but...
I could be e-mailed at home also at gkdkgrubb@msn.com
- Innkeeper - 03-15-2001
Hi Grubby, and welcome to the Wine Board. Will just be talking about table wine here, not dessert wine which is all sweet. Just about all red wines are dry except for Lambrusco. As for whites, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio, are usually dry. Riesling, gwurtztraminer, and chenin blanc can range from dry to very sweet. Muscat or orange muscat is almost always sweet. This is true for varietal wines from the new world, and as well as for the same grapes in old world regionally named wines.
- cpurvis - 03-15-2001
Following is a web address for an interesting listing of wines by real or perceived sweetness according to your tastes:
http://www.wineontheweb.com/consumer_advice/thesugarsand/thesugarsand.html
Hope this helps. cp
[This message has been edited by cpurvis (edited 03-15-2001).]
- Botafogo - 03-15-2001
The driest thing most people will ever encounter is Sylvaner from Alto Adige in Italy or Franconia in Germany and a good DRY Muscat is a thing of beauty with spicy food.
. As to most red being dry, phooooooey! Besides the fact that the currently popular style is to make Zinfandel and Syrah into overextracted, jammy wanna be quasi portos, there are also large categories of semi sweet reds like Recioto della Valpolicella, Primitivo in Tradizzione del Nonno and more....
Roberto
- Drew - 03-15-2001
Roberto, please don't misunderstand this post and know that I respect your opinions and wine knowledge, but are you ever happy with a wine that's not Italian or an alcoholic malt beverage that's not from Belgium? As a matter of fact I'm sitting here drinking a Belgian Ale wanna be...(it's in its infancy stage!) What's wrong with overextracted Syrah and Zins and the style of which they've been produced? I happen to love these wines and don't understand your attack or displeasure of these wines. An inquiring mind wants to know, or am I reading into your post?
Drew
- Botafogo - 03-16-2001
Drew, I was responding to the denial involved in the statement that "just about all reds except Lambrusco are dry":
Many wines in styles that one would assume would be dry are in fact possessing considerable residual sugar these days, in particular the fruit bomb reds made with extracts like "Super Red" (a dirty little secret of many of the top California and Australian winemakers, it is massively concentrated grape must akin to German Suissereserve that can be added with impunity as as little as three percent in a wine can radically up its "smucker factor" without requiring any disclosure in labeling). There is nothing "wrong" with these wines except for their representation as "dry red table wines" which they are not anymore than KJ Chard with 5% unfermented muscat in it is "dry Chardonnay". It never ceases to amaze me when consumers tell me they want a really "dry" wine and then, when I ask what they are drinking already, they cite these fruit punch wines. They then often characterize actually dry wines as "sour" or "tart".
And, yes, I enjoy many non Italian wines but immediately chafe when most people completely ignore entire phylums and kingdoms of wine in sweeping gerneralizations, including many medium dry or soft reds from Eastern Europe, South Africa and Modesto as well as Italy. Sometimes if it wasn't for me, a grossly inadequate representation of availlable styles, varietals and values would not see the light of day here and in many other forums.
The wines I talk about ARE in distribution and are NOT "off the wall", they ARE ignored by many as actual diversity as opposed to a plethora of labels of the same thing is scary to many.
This is not a slam on YOU either, just a statement of fact: there is a broad range of sweetness in both Red and White non fortified table wines.
Roberto
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 03-15-2001).]
- Innkeeper - 03-16-2001
Sorry, was just trying to keep it simple.
- winoweenie - 03-16-2001
Ik and Drew, If by now, you haven't learned that no un-founded generality will not go un-flogged with the Boto around then I'll sugest you take wine semantics 101 again. heheheVB
- Drew - 03-16-2001
I've already signed up. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/redface.gif[/img]
Drew
- Botafogo - 03-16-2001
InnKeeper, no disrespect at all vibing your way. I added my short and to the point expansion of your post and thought that was that but the second post was responding to Drew's apparent need for some sort of special justification to talk about the wines of the most diverse wine culture on the planet or address the polite little lie involved in describing many "dry" table wines sold today.
Here in LA we have a large expat Russian community and there is hence a large market for quality (and not cheap) medium sweet (but not dessert) Reds including many Italian but also Hungarian and even Georgian wines. We find them (especially Recioto and Sagrantino Passito) to be fabulous solutions to heaping plates of Tandoori Meats in our favorite (and plentiful) Indian restaurants as well.
Roberto
- cpurvis - 03-16-2001
Poor "I don't need anything elaborate" Grubby, jus' asked for a simple list.
But, then again, nothin' like a good 'Fogo DIATRIBE for wine education [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]
cp
- Botafogo - 03-16-2001
Definitions are important, they frame any discussion and co-opting them is the easiest way to spread dis-information, NOT that that was anyone's intention here. But the simplest of statements, for instance "Budweiser is America's largest selling beer" assumes that Budweiser IS "beer" which, since the first and main ingredient is RICE and it contains no perceptable hops, it is clearly not.
Just remember 1984, Roberto
- Thomas - 03-16-2001
Roberto, I agree with your argument about the use of words and possible dis-information, which is why I detest the word "booze" to refer to wine, and the idea hanging hangover on wine's mantle, but you argued with me on that one.
Is one's rationale another's mistake?
- Botafogo - 03-16-2001
Foodie, consider this:
if you think you cannot get a hangover with wine, let me send you a magnum of Amarone for research..... Maybe it's not the "I will NEVER drink again as long as I live if only the floor will stop spinning" type you get from tequila but a throbbing head, cottonmouth and immense feeling of dehydration are definately on the menu if you drink even a little too much of highly extracted wines, don't eat enough and don't drink at least twice as much volume of water as wine.
As to "booze" we're talking slang and regional dialect there, not a solid "definition".
I am SO sensitive on this as all day long idiots who were working for Procter and Gamble or Marlboro last week are standing in front of me trying to redefine EVERYTHING from the scale of a winery ("it's a small family winery, they make 100, 000 cases of Chardonnay and just 25,000 cases of Merlot"), origin of the fruit ("it's made from the young vines at Ornelaia" but it says ON THE LABEL in Italian that it is bottled FOR Ornelaia from the Coop down the road), or worse. It drives me CRAZY!
Foodie, do you see this from your reps, Roberto
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 03-17-2001).]
- Thomas - 03-17-2001
Roberto, two days ago I told a "child-wine salesman" that the best way to sell to me does not inlcude coming into my shop and telling me that some of the wines on my shelf are not as good as the ones he sells; I politely threw him out, and I was particularly pleased when his book, which I threw after him, landed at the back of his stupid head. I have been consuming and studying wine for thirty years; he just started selling it after his tech stocks tanked.
Re, booze: accepting slang to identify a person, place or thing is a slippery slope activity. In my neighborhood--a few centuries ago--"you suck" or "you scumbag" were fighting words, for their connotations. Now those phrases are acceptable, but they lower common discourse, not to mention that they have changed their original meanings.
- Botafogo - 03-17-2001
Last December a marketing rep from one of the largest liquor companies who import three large Grande Marque Champagnes came in demanding to buy two cases of an industrial Champagne she represents. When we advised her that we had only two bottles of it, didn’t sell very much of it and recommended a far superior grower cuvée for the same price she asked dumbfoundedly, “What’s a grower Champagne?â€. When we explained the drill and pointed out that it was 100% Grand Cru Pinot Noir she responded, “There is no such thing, most Champagnes are made from (inferior, ed.) Pinot Meunierâ€! We are certain that most of HERS are but that's hardly the point.....
Roberto
- mrdutton - 03-29-2001
I'll never go on vacation to Flordia for three weeks ever, ever again. I've just missed too much discussion!!! All this in the NOVICE forum.
My god, when do we get serious?
[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 03-29-2001).]