Dry Wines

[Thomas]

jimcoach, technically, the term dry refers to relative acidity more than it does to lack of sugar. The reason for that is that it is virtually impossible to remove all sugar in grape juice during fermentation. But the human tongue does not really register sugar in wine until the residual sweetness is about .5% by volume. Most dry wines contain residual sugars lower than .5% by volume, and because the sugar goes unregistered, the acids (tannic included) are more prominent--the wine is then considered dry.

The reason you see words like "Dry Riesling" on a bottle of that kind of wine is usually not because the wine lacks sugar, but because its acids are usually so high they balance out the sensation of residual sugar that is normally in that kind of wine.