How to tell how much sugar is in these wines?

[Wine2nite]

Hello again.
I need some help on finding out the sugar in these brands of wines: Turning leaf,Twin Valley,Inglenook,Vendange,Glen Ellen. These are the wines I am going to try but don't know how to find out what or how much sugar these brands have in them. I don't like sweet wines and want to stay-away from them. Can anyone go the websites for these wines and find out for me which wines are the dry ones and Semi-dry?????? Thank you

[Thomas]

It isn't likely you will find the sugar content information online in most cases--maybe some. Perhaps, if you get on their Web sites and send an email asking the question you will get an answer.

If the wines you seek are white, there is an easy way for you to measure the sugar at home. Get a hold of the Clinitest, a system of tablets dissolved in water to determine sugar in urine. It works through color chromotography--and so it works on white wine.

I get my Clinitest from a home winemaker shop.

[Innkeeper]

Glen Ellen tends to make their wines a little sweet. The white zins of all those producers are very sweet.

[quijote]

Here's a follow-up question to the main question above: In general, can one make a deduction about a wine's sugar content on the basis of the percentage of alcohol (as listed on the bottle)? This seems to be Andrea Immer's point in her intro book. It makes sense, as (in still wine) higher alcohol level generally means that more sugar has been converted into alcohol, and lower alcohol level would mean that less sugar has been converted into alcohol.

Is this a reasonable guideline? It seems to make sense, but I'm very much a newbie, so I don't know what kinds of exceptions there may be. (And the answer probably relates to the type of grape used, too?)

Q

[Innkeeper]

No, because you would have to check how much sugar was in it to begin with. This is possible by checking the brix that the wine was picked at, and comparing it to the alcohol level in the finished product. All this is not necessary in most cases. As repeated here time after time, most wine is dry; meaning that there is no residual or added back sugar in it.

Many of the wines that are off dry will have the amount or percentage of residual sugar printed on the front or back label. An exception to this is white zin. You just have to experiment to find a dry one or one with the sweetness you desire.

[Kcwhippet]

As Ik says, there is no real correlation between the percentage of alcohol in a wine and any residual sugar. The alcohol depends on the brix the grapes were harvested at and the amount of sugar the winemaker chooses to have present after fermentation. Of course, that doesn't consider that some winemakers choose to add some sweetener after fermentation and before bottling to bring the sugar up to a level that they feel is necessary to sell their product to a particular segment of the market. Many novice/uninformed/uneducated people don't like a completely dry wine preferring some sweetness or perception of sweetness. The winemakers who are trying to sell to that group tend to sell wines with some residual sugar or added sweeteners.

[quijote]

This is helpful, though now I think I need to read up about "brix"!

[Thomas]

The word, brix, is from a person's name--German, I think--it is used for the measure of natural grape sugar percentage by volume in juice. There are instruments that measure brix by way of specific gravity.

The percentage of alcohol, when fermented dry, is close to half the beginning brix; 23% brix about 12% Alcohol.

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 02-12-2003).]

[Kcwhippet]

To make it a bit more confusing, the brix at harvest doesn't always correlate at close to 2:1. Zinfandel is a prime example, because it ripens so unevenly. You generally have grapes that are perfectly ripe along with raisins and not quite ripe grapes all in the same bunch. When you make Zin, you crush the grapes and sit the must overnight to let the raisins plump before innoculating. During that time, the brix can rise two points or more, which will raise the % alcohol if fermented to fully dry. Winemaking is so much fun.

[Thomas]

And I got the numbers backwards--ferment dry and the alcohol is just less than half the brix.

[Innkeeper]

Did you novices notice that KC slipped another term in; "must."

[quijote]

Yes, "must"--when I read it in context, it seemed to mean "recently crushed grapes, skins, juice, and all"--but what does it really mean? Is it filtered?

[Bucko]

KC is always whipping out something new, ahem...... now to inform his wife. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Kcwhippet]

One whips when one must, and there's no need to inform Judy. She knows all, believe me.

[Wine2nite]

Ok have another question,guess I should of asked in the first place. When it comes to Residul sugar in wines is for most true all the time Wines with a Higher residual sugar number Sweeter or Dryer???
Wine2Nite

[Innkeeper]

The higher the amount or percentage of residual sugar, the sweeter the wine is.