from dry to sweet

[rfisle]

Greeting to all! This is my first board post. Can anyone provide a fairly comprehensive list of the major red and white grape varieties listing from dryest to sweetest and light bodied to full bodied?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Innkeeper]

Hi Rfisle, and welcome to the Wine Board. Grapes do not make a wine dry or sweet, winemakers do. Body is almost the same. It is determined by how ripe the grapes were, and how much sugar they generated. Then winemakers determine how much to turn into alcohol, and how much sugar to leave in it.

An excellent book available of sale from Amazon right now for less than $25 delivered, is Michael Schuster's "Essential Winetasting". It not only covers how to taste, but also how wine is made, and a full description of the world's winegrapes. He ends up walking you through tasting of the wines made from these grapes. There is much discussion and crossreferencing of the subjects you bring up such as dryness, sweetness, and body.