Which are the driest wines?

[Charmayne]

My mother is on a new diet in which she has cut her carbohydrates down, and the diet allows for only the driest wines. She currently drinks mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, but she'd like the names of some other wines that are drier. If anyone has any information, please email me at Charmayne7@aol.com. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Bucko]

That is not as easy to answer as you might think. Any wine can have residual sugar and any wine can be dry as a bone.

GENERALLY, the most popular varietals are made in a dry style e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc.

Chenin Blanc, Riesling, and Gewurztraminer can, and often do, have a lot of residual sugar. Port is almost always very sweet. You cannot always tell by the label whether the wine is dry or sweet, compounding the problem.

Bucko

[n144mann]

You may want to check some of the online data bases that give you not only ratings, but descriptions of individual wines. As Bucko pointed out, wines vary from maker to maker inside each varietal. Wine Spectator does this, I think, as does SmartWine. Smartwine's database I know breaks each down and rates the dryness, apart from the other characteristics of the wine. It may be helpful. If you can not find these web sites on your own, email me and I will send them to you. Good hunting!

[This message has been edited by n144mann (edited 02-23-99).]

[Jason]

Why not just limit her to Brut sparkling wines and Champagnes? With two fermentations these are dry. And where do I sign up for this diet?

[Karena Shannon]

Query: If she's on a very lo-carbo diet, how can she drink alcoholic beverages?
Bucko, isn't ethyl alcohol rapidly converted by the body into a sugar precursor, or can I go on the low fat, low carbo/all beer diet? <smirk>

[Jerry D Mead]

Jason...Just because a Champagne is fermented twice and is designated Brut does not mean it is totally dry...sugar is almost always added as part of the dosage to balance the acid.

I believe those French examples labeled Sauvage or Nature are truly dry...I'm sure Tom will correct me if I'm wrong.

JDM

[Thomas]

The curmudgeon is correct about sugar in those sparklers; a Brut can be as high as 2% residual sugar. Sauvage is supposed to be near bone dry. But I think whoever prescribed dry wine for the low carb diet is mistaken. I was taught that alcohol and sugar become, in the body, close to one and the same.

I have a theory about alcoholics and diabtetes, but that's for another posting...

Incidentally, I recently went on the diet --drink wine everday and have still lost about a pound a week.

[Bucko]

You are correct, Karena.

Bucko

[Heather]

Foodie,
I am very interested in finding out what your theory on diabeties and alcoholism is. Are you going to start another thread on this?

[Thomas]

Heather,

Someone else asked that question in the "wine and health" section. I explained my truly layman theory there; essentially, since alcohol is metabolized as a sugar, and since the effect of too much alcohol is (among other things) lowering of blood sugar, it seems possible to me that diabetes and/or hypoglycemia can be related to alcholism.
I am hypoglycemic, and I stumbled on the effects of sugar before I knew what it was all about.
I have also always wondered about, and been in awe of, the amount of sugar (and caffeine) consumed by many recovering alcoholics I have met.

[Tolpainter]

WOW, I was looking for a dry wine too
I have been on the LC diet for 3 months..
lost (almost) 30 pounds
I would really like to find a wine,
from the sounds of it here, it will be trial and error

[Innkeeper]

Mrs Innkeeper has been on the diet for two years and is doing fantastically well. In the first 14 months she lost over one hundred pounds, and is taking a break before going for forty more. She has also lost here sleep apnea, reflux, high triglycerates, and other ailments, and regained her teenaged blood pressure levels. All under her doctors care. Her diet included one or two glasses of dry wine every night. Dry red table wine has 2.5 carbs, and dry white table wine has 3.5, so the wine can easily be handled on almost any lo-carb diet. For more details on her diet and/or a list of low-carb recipes that we've shared with others on the low-carb diet, just e-mail us.

[Winent]

Well, thought I might throw in my less than two cents worth. As I recall, from my biochemistry days - alcohol is metabolized mainly by your liver into acetaldehyde and eventually acetate, which is a building material your body can use in certain metabolic pathways. However, the liver must expend a lot of chemical energy to do this and hypoglycemia is one of the net results. In chronic high alcohol intake, the liver is "ramped" up to perform this chemical coversion. I surmise this explains why an alcoholic might have a high "sugar" demand following acute withdrawl of alchohol.

As far as the low carb diets, many find them quite successful. I would encourage anyone starting a low or no carb diet to see a health care professional first as there is a small segment of the population who should definitely avoid these diets.