02/06/06 Monday question - Dry vs Sweet wines

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and on today's program we will be answering a question from the email. Recently a listener wrote, "You once described the differences between the terms dry and sweet  would you review that for us again?" When discussing wine, the difference between the terms sweet and dry, are in reference to the levels of perceptible sugar in a wine. When a wine is described as sweet it means we perceive sugar, not necessarily fruit, but real sugar sweet in the wine. Our taste buds for recognizing sugar are on the tip of our tongue. Notice if you perceive that sugar flavor or sensation on the tip of your tongue. If we refer to a wine as dry it means that most of the perceptible sugar has been fermented and the sugar is no longer apparent. In this case, dry is referring to the absence of sugar or sweetness in the wine. Often this will mean that other characteristics, such as the level of acidity, or the apparent astringency of the tannins may become more apparent in the wine. Most consumers don't start right off liking dry wines we usually acquire a taste for them. Often people in a restaurant will order a wine by saying do you have a dry white wine or, what is the driest wine that you have? I am often uncertain that they really love dry wine or if they somehow believe that this criteria will show that they are cool or sophisticated. Either way if you like a wine that is less sweet go for a dry wine if you like sweet wine then for goodness sake order it. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.