Dan Berger Wine Chronicles: What Is a Dry Wine?
By Dan Berger
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — Almost every wine company in the United States is rightly fearful of ingredient labeling, which not only will be extremely expensive — and a threat to wine pricing — but could also have a negative impact on the way all wine packages appear, destroying images and making it seem as if the product is formulated like soda, breakfast cereal and sausages.
Just about nobody in the wine industry will be happy if the government mandates a list of ingredients on wine bottles. Much of the data will never be explained properly to consumers, who mainly will get the wrong impression. (“Hey, this wine has fish in it!?”)
However, there is a dirty little secret that’s lurking and that seems to be ignored by almost everyone who should care. And if the wine industry doesn’t address this issue proactively, it could come back to haunt everyone, including wine-lovers, in ways they fear most. Such as higher wine prices.
It is the simple question, “What’s a dry wine?” Or “Is that wine sweet?”
OK, I admit that these questions are not simple. In fact, what constitutes a sweet or dry wine is one of the most complex queries to even pose — and it is far more intricate to answer than anyone realizes. The only people who understand all the ramifications (or most of them) are chemists and winemakers. Many understand why the question should never be asked in the first place.
Getting to the heart of the matter, however, isn’t all that complicated. It appears to me that wines in many areas of the world are getting sweeter than they have ever been, and now that includes many red wines. Unfortunately, that also includes some Napa cabernets.
When I first got into fine wine in the 1970s, I was told that the human palate could detect sugar in a liquid at approximately 0.4% (4 grams per liter). But then I realized that our perception of sugar sweetness depends on lots of other factors, such as the amount of acid or alkalinity in a liquid, the pH of the liquid and several other issues.
When you buy a bottle of a historically dry white wine (i.e., chardonnay, pinot gris, sauvignon blanc) and the label denotes or implies that the wine is “dry,” consumers have every right to expect that the wine will not contain any residual sugar. Unfortunately, this expectation today is often ignored by oodles of wine companies, much to the detriment of people who do not like any sweetness in their white wines at all.
Just think of how many chardonnays, sauvignon blancs and pinot gris today contain enough sweetness to make them fail miserably with most foods. I suspect that most of this residual sugar is intentional.
An old saying in this business is that most people talk dry but drink sweet.
One key point here will explain why this issue exists: Defining a dry wine is extremely complicated.
In the United States, for example, the word “dry” is not defined by the federal government or for that matter anyone else. It’s subjective. We all detect sugar at different levels. So defining “sweet” or “dry” is next to impossible.
In fact, this issue was long ago determined to be critical to German wine producers, the majority of whom produce riesling, most of it sweet. One reason for that is that Germany has historically been extremely cold, which means that most of their wines have an enormous amount of acidity
Challenge your vocabulary with this week’s mystery word. Submit your answer in the poll, and check the bottom of the page for the correct answer.
However, in the last decade or so, an increasingly important category for Germany has been the production of world-class dry riesling. For decades, the German government has accepted that the term “trocken” may be used to define a dry wine. (Halb-trocken is used to describe a wine that has slightly more residual sugar but is nearly dry.)
German wine officials built into its trocken rules a key ameliorating issue. Its “dry” definition includes a regulation that permits roughly 1 full percent of residual sugar (10 grams per liter) in any wine that still may be identified as trocken. That is because in most cases German rieslings have so much acidity that the wines tend to be tart and seemingly dry, even if a trace of residual sugar remains.
(Germany also has another category of wine called Diabetikerwein, specifically designed for those with diabetes because the wines have virtually no sugar. Since the United States government has mandated that wineries may not make any health or medical statements on a bottle of wine, beer or spirits, I suspect that none of these lines will ever appear in the United States.)
Wines that traditionally are dry and have no residual sugar at all appeal to people who appreciate how they pair with food — and who do not want wines that are marked “dry” to be soft and succulent. Several wines from France, particularly from the Loire Valley, have traditionally been so dry that their supporters say they are wonderfully austere and designed to go with oysters.
However, in the last few years many of these wines have begun to show up on store shelves and were not as dry as they had been. I began noticing this trend about two years ago, and it has been extremely disappointing.
In some (most?) cases, wineries have made a conscious decision to soften (sweeten) many of their wines so they would appeal to people who previously might consider them to be “sour” or tart. I can certainly understand how this could happen in the United States. American society has never had a significantly broad-based wine-drinking culture. Knowledge of wine in this country is woeful.
One result is what I see as a pernicious trend: Wines that historically were dry now seem to be produced with more sweetness than ever.
Such formerly totally dry wines as muscadet, Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé, vouvray sec and even Chablis have begun to appear in retail establishments here that were nowhere near as dry as they once were. I have not done scientific testing to prove whether they have residual sugar or not. Such testing can be expensive
But I have wasted significant amounts of money on wines that were theoretically dry but were not. And an old friend and wine-lover to whom I spoke about this said he observed the same thing — “I’m seeing a lot of ‘dry’ wines that are sweet, and it seems to be increasing,” he said.
He said that about 20 years ago, when Rombauer Vineyards’ chardonnay was growing rapidly in popularity, “sweetness was the main reason for their success. But you know, that’s the market today. The marketplace is asking for that; it’s not just Rombauer chardonnay any more. A lot of wineries are doing this.”
And here is where the complications get even worse. I believe many of the sweeter versions of formerly dry wines that we are seeing today do not rely on actual residual sugar but on much lower acidity levels and higher pH levels. When such tactics are combined with higher alcohols, the result is wines that are far more succulent, soft and slightly sweet and less likely to work with food.
So although a wine might taste sweet, it might actually be technically dry without much or any sugar and still be so soft that it tastes sweet. The best way to make such a wine taste drier is to serve it extremely cold. But such a tactic backfires. If you serve any wine too cold, its flavors suffer.
At this point in our discussion, some people might wonder why the sugar in a wine might lead to labeling regulations that could be odious. The threat, as I imagine it, might come from anti-alcohol forces that will do anything to subvert the sale of spirits, beer and wine, which includes lying about the products that they claim are creating health hazards.
With wines becoming sweeter and sweeter, some people might find that it is time to warn diabetics that their wines could be endangering their lives. They might demand labels that state the specific sugar content in each wine.
But the sweetness level of any particular wine is not always solely related to sugar content. There are numerous ways to make any wine taste sweet or succulent. Raising the pH makes a wine taste softer and sweeter. So does lowering the acidity, as does increasing the alcohol. Then there is the issue of higher levels of amino acids that can create a sweet taste. Recent Australian research in the area of the amino acid proline proves this.
Proline cannot be fermented, and this stays in the wine. It is a result of how the grapes were grown and then harvested. This is a new area of scientific investigation.
Then, of course, there are entirely legal wine additives that can be used in the production of wine that could increase the sweetness of the wine, such as concentrates like the widely used Mega Purple. It is most often employed to make inexpensive wines, but several Napa Valley winemakers have told me that this concentrate is also used to “improve” the intensity of some very expensive wines.
Mega Purple, which sells for about $135 per gallon, contains more than 65% residual sugar. When it is added to a fermentation tank, the sugar is converted to alcohol. But it also can be added after fermentation has been concluded. The result: Sugar remains in the wine. I have done a lot of investigation into Mega Purple and find it to be an adequate solution for producing extremely inexpensive wines.
Moreover, there are several kinds of sugars that might be left in a finished wine. The two most common are fructose and glucose, and they differ in the way they are perceived. Fructose is 2.5 times sweeter than glucose, and the yeasts that ferment sugars into alcohol ferment glucose faster than fructose.
Even though many white wines today contain residual sugars, few winemakers like to reveal how much actual sugar is left in the wines. I routinely ask wineries to tell me their residual sugars along with several other statistics before I evaluate a wine. When the statistics of a particular wine are what I view to be out of balance, I rarely review it. (I do occasionally review dessert wines, but I prefer those that are balanced.).
I am aware that some wineries do not dissect the sugars they leave in their wines, so they would not know what percentage of a wine’s sugar is glucose and what percentage is fructose. Since they are perceived differently, this information can be important.
(The amount of total residual sugars in a red wine became a news story a few weeks ago when Sonoma County winemaker Adam Lee sent out a social media post in which he alleged that one of his pinot noirs was significantly lower in sugar than a high-image pinot from giant wine company Constellation.
(Lee’s social media post said, “There is less sugar in 32 bottles of Dial Tone Pinot Noir than in just one bottle of Meiomi Pinot Noir.” Constellation officials were not amused and asked Lee for specifics. Lee produced a report from one of the nation’s most scientifically accurate laboratories, ETS of St. Helena, that showed his wine had 0.6 grams per liter of sugar and the Meiomi Pinot Noir had 19.4 g/L of sugar — nearly 2% by weight.
(I tasted the Meiomi PN several months ago and found it to be significantly sweeter than any pinot noir I had ever tasted.)
Also, as if this business of sweet wines weren’t already extremely complicated, there are several sugars that may be left in a wine that simply cannot be fermented by traditional yeasts. These sugars are called pentoses, and although they are usually found in very small amounts, they do add to the midpalate body of a wine.
In 1972, French wine author André Vedel published a triangular chart that showed differing aspects of a wine’s character. It shows one vertex as having what he called “sweetness/softness,” a second showing astringency and a third marked “acidity.”
Master of Wine Peter Koff wrote about this chart in 2018. He said, “The ‘best’ wines will cluster around the center where the balance is best. Wines that are on the heavier side of the spectrum, and may have higher alcohol, will be further from the center. Bolder, richer wines tend to fall further away from the center.
“If you enjoy higher acidity in a red wine, you prefer a wine with a long acidity axis. If you like to drink sweet wine, you will prefer a wine with a long softness axis. If you love to drink heavy and robust wine, your triangle’s bitterness axis will be longer.”
Wine Discovery
2021 Smith Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, Spring Mountain District ($65) — Most wine-lovers realize the vital difference between valley floor-grown grapes and those that grow in mountain soils. Cabernet, in particular, is a classic case in point because for various geological and meteorological reasons, what you get tends to be a little more intense and distinctive. For that reason and a couple of others (e.g., higher farming costs), it’s understandable that mountain-grown cabernets can be more expensive than others, which makes this wine a remarkable value. The grapes were grown at the highest elevation on Spring Mountain. Some reviewers will not see the greatness in this wine that I do. Most of the point-purveyors usually seek intensity over character. This wine has a balance of both, and one of its most attractive characteristics is that it smells and tastes like cabernet! Which differs from most Napa Valley cabs today. Once this wine has been opened and decanted for a couple of hours you get delicate mint, dried herb and tobacco influences that perfectly pair with cassis and black-cherry fruit. Although it is extremely young, it responds beautifully to aeration. Swirling it in a glass expands the nuances, which are easy to access because the alcohol (14.3%) is moderate and the pH low (3.56). Its excellent structure works superably with beef dishes. Almost 18% cabernet Franc contributes depth and complexity. From the website: “Our Spring Mountain pedigree insures deliciously integrated tannins and a long life-span. For fifty years our wines have been sourced from the same vineyards, pruned, cultivated and harvested in the same manner, creating artisanal wines which are distinctive and complex.”
This Week's Word Challenge Reveal:
The correct answer is A: "Dry wine with low sugar content." In winemaking, "sec" is a French term that translates to "dry" and refers to wines with very little residual sugar. It is commonly used to describe sparkling and still wines. We hope you enjoyed this week’s challenge and look forward to next week’s word.
If today’s story captured your interest, explore these related articles:
Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles: The Depth and Versatility of Sangiovese
Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles: Uncovering the 'Soul' of Noble Reds
Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles: Proof That Napa’s Older Cabs Can Age
Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles: Napa and Sonoma as True Vinous Siblings
Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles: The Nostalgia and Nonsense of Barrel Tastings
Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles: The Evolution and Art of Winemaking
Dan Berger has been writing about wine since 1975.
The views, opinions and data presented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or perspective of Napa Valley Features or its editorial team. Any content provided by our authors is their own and is not intended to malign any group, organization, company or individual.
Thanks for this writing, Dan. You have well clarified the move from sec to sweet.
Best in this new year, and do keep writing! Toni Allegra