IN VERY general terms, the highest concentration of those taste buds that are particularly aware of sweetness is around the tip of the tongue.
Perhaps this is why we need only a tiny lick of ice cream to know how sweet it is, and why a single lick of a chocolate can convey so much more than a single lick of cheese.
Grape juice becomes wine when yeast acts on the sugar in ripe grapes to convert some, or nearly all, of it (in a way too complicated for most of us to even contemplate) into alcohol. The resulting liquid is therefore drier and stronger than grape juice, but the amount of sweetness left in the finished wine — ‘the residual sugar’ — varies enormously.
Wine can be extra dry, dry, medium dry, medium sweet, sweet and very sweet; though even wines we normally label ‘bone dry’, because they seem to have no sweetness at all, contain a tiny amount of residual sugar.
Sugar content ranges from about one to more than 200 grams per litre, with dry wines usually containing less than 10 grams and often as few as two. Most very cheap wines and many very popular ones have quite a lot of residual sugar because sweetness can mask many a rough edge and it is a very easy taste to appreciate.
In recent years, however, the mass market has been schooled to feel proud of liking something dry, though now there are instances of inverse snobbery in people who perhaps make a bit more noise about liking German wines and Sauternes than they would if those wines were more generally appreciated.
Levels of sweetness in white wine
Bone dry
Muscadet; Loire wines based on the Sauvignon grape such as Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé and Sauvignon de Touraine; most champagne and other sparkling wines labeled ‘brut’; proper Chablis from Northern France, Germany’s ‘trocken’ wines and some Xynisteri.
Dry
The biggest category by far, though even within it there are variations, with cheaper versions tending towards medium dry. Most Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Verdelho, Colombard; white Burgundy, Loire wines labeled ‘sec’ and based on the Chenin Blanc grape, such as Vouvray and Saumur; white Rhône and Provence wines such as Hermitage Blanc or Châteuneuf-du-Pape Blanc; most white Bordeaux labelled ‘sec’; most white ‘vin de pays’, Soave, Verdicchio, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Bianco and most white ‘vino da tavola’; white Rioja, Germany’s ‘halbtrocken’ wines and some of its lightest Kabinett wines, Xynisteri and Fino and Manzanilla sherry.
Medium dry
Riesling, Viognier, Gewürztraminer, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris; most French wines labeled ‘demi-sec’, especially Vouvrays, and Coteaux du Layon; most Alsace wines; Frascati; the great majority of German wine exported and certainly those labeled Kabinett, Spätlese or Halbtrocken; some Xynisteri, many blended, labelled medium dry and many medium sweet; Dry Amontillado or Dry Oloroso sherry, white port.
Medium sweet
Most wines labelled Late Harvest; most French wines labeled ‘moelleux’; ‘vendange tardive’ wines from Alsace; Asti and most Moscato, Moscatel de Setubal; Tokay from Hungary; German Auslese and Mosel Beerenauslese; most white Zinfadel and other blush wines; commercial Amontillado sherry; most Madeira
Sweet
Most wines labelled ‘botrydized’ or Selected Late Harvest; Sauternes, Barsac, Monbazillac, Saussignac, Ste Croix du Mont; French Muscats; German Trockenbeerenauslese; most Recioto and Passito; Vin Santo, California Muscat; commercial Oloros sherry; Malmsey Madeira.
Very sweet
Spanish Moscatel; Australian Liquer Muscat and Tokay; Cream and PX sherry; a host of fortified wines.
Sweet red wine
We tend to think that it’s only white wines that vary in sweetness. Rosés do as well, of course, with Provence making generally quite dry wines, while Mateus Rosé is an example of wine that is medium dry to medium sweet.
But it is perhaps more of a revelation to examine the varying degrees of sweetness in red wines. Port is the supreme example of a very sweet red, but it is a wine that has been fortified by the addition of extra alcohol.
Levels of sweetness in red wine
Bone dry
Red Loires such as Bourgueil, Chinon and Saumur Rouge; typical Médoc and Pessac-Léognan; Hermitage; Italy’s great reds such as Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino and Chianti Classico.
Dry
About 85 per cent of all reds.
Medium dry
Most varietal Merlot and Piniot Noir; some California Cabernet Sauvignon, much Zinfadel; Châteuneuf-du-Pape; Lambrusco; Freisa; most German reds; Australian Shiraz; South Africa’s beefier reds; most inexpensive branded reds
Medium sweet
Sangria; sparkling Shiraz; Recioto della Valpolicella; most Brachetto; California’s late harvest Zinfadels.
