Sugar in wines

[Thomas]

The technical answer is that it is virtually impossible to convert all the sugar in grape juice to alcohol. Red or white, dry wines contain sugar, impercetible as it is from .01 percent to .50 percent by volume; beyond that, the tongue has a better shot at registering sugar. But not all dry wines are alike either. Specifically, sparkling wine and wines like Riesling contain high acidity so higher residual sugar levels--say 1.0 percent--still seem relatively dry, and so the wines are considered dry even with those sugar levels. (With Champagne, the designation of dry is an absolute obfuscation, the wine being quite sweet. Brut, among the driest Champagne, can be as high as 1.0 percent in sugar.)

Dessert wines can go quite high in sugar content, often beyond 3 percent.

To approximately convert the percent by volume into grams add a decimal.




[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 01-21-2003).]