Do you find yourself wondering if you should be seeking out "low sugar" wines? My social feeds are flooded with brands marketing their wines it this way...
Let's breakdown:
Do all wines have sugar? If so how much?
What's RS in wine?
Is low sugar wine a "thing'?
What causes the perception of sweetness in wine even it's not?
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... Especially Americans, especially those of us of a certain age, we grew up in a culture where we're drinking a lot of juice and soda and, you know, our palate kind of likes those things, fruit roll ups. The perception of sweetness can be comforting and nostalgic, but just know that if the fermentation has completed, all of that sugar has become, dun da da, alcohol, hooray!
So, welcome back to all my repeat listeners. Now that we've been around for a couple of months, there are quite a few of you, which is really exciting. So thanks for tuning in. And if you're brand new to our Sip with Nikki community, welcome, we are so excited to have you here with us. So in today's episode, I am breaking down a topic that comes up All the time.
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We're going to be talking about what causes sweetness or lack thereof in wine. Um, we're going to be talking about calories and different sources that, um, provide calories in wine, hint, hint, one of them is alcohol. We're going to talk about a different, um, spectrum from sweet to dry and different types of wines that are traditionally made in certain parts of that spectrum.
n, did you know that you can [:
That's a whole nother episode. We talk about alcohol and sugar and bourbon, but that's what she loves. Um, some of you have already done that. Shout out if you have. for supporting the podcast. There's a link in the show notes below. To do so it's super quick. We will give you a shout out and it allows us to continue what we're doing and cover some of our operating costs.
So without further hesitation, let's break down sugar in wine. Here we go.
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and turning it into alcohol. That is fermentation. So the amount of alcohol that is present in a final wine, once fermentation is dry, that's the, that's the terminology we use. We say it's dry because all the sugar is gone and has been converted to alcohol, right? Once that's done, whatever the level of sugar was in the starting Grapes and juice is going to directly determine what the final amount of alcohol is in that wine if the fermentation completed to dryness.
sweet wines on this planet, [:
And what that's going to do is two things. The alcohol is going to be a little bit lower in the resulting wine, maybe 11 or 12%. And there's going to be what we call residual sugar. R. S. Residual sugar is sugars that's left over. It was originally there in the grapes and it did not get converted into alcohol.
f sugar or grape concentrate [:
so we say, Oh, this wine is sweet, but on paper chemically we can measure, Nope, there's no residual sugar or, you know, a very negligible amount in there. But yes. Sometimes a wine can, um, seem like it has sweetness and, and that can be yummy, right? Especially Americans, especially those of us of a certain age, we grew up in a culture where we're drinking a lot of juice and soda and, you know, our palate kind of likes those things, fruit roll ups.
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I feel like every other day I'm seeing an ad that is promoting low sugar or sugar free wine. And so something to be aware of if you think back to what I just explained is that there can be many wines out there on the market that chemically if you look at the leftover glucose and fructose, because those are the two main sugars.
st of them are going to have [:
It's just not marketed in that way because I think, and this is me, vice president in charge of nothing, right? This is just Nikki's view. But definitely in, in recent years, it's just a trend and it's a focus in wellness to think about these things and to, to promote and look for wines that are branded as having low or no sugar.
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can be aware of it. Now, if [:
On average, um, a five ounce glass of red wine with an average alcohol by volume of 14%. It's going to have about 120 calories in it. And those calories are coming from alcohol. Even if there's no sugar left, you're getting calories from alcohol. So it's kind of like, well, wait, you fermented all the sugar away.
the actual chemistry of wine [:
So that's what I have to say on that. Now it's time for a listener question. Listener questions. So Brad in Florida. Uh, he emailed to Nikki at SipWithNikki. com, uh, where you can send your own listener questions in the future. But Brad from Florida wrote in and said, I don't like sweet wine. Am I going to like Riesling?
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But it's not going to be sweet, so it has nothing to do with the grape. It's just that historically, Riesling is a type of grape, especially in parts of the world like Germany the style that they've chosen to produce that.
is with some sweetness and leaving that residual sugar in there, but it doesn't have to be that. There is a, um, dry Riesling as well. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes. Um, Riesling is just one that always comes up because the minute people hear that they say, Oh, it's going to be sweet. I don't like it.
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That episode is coming soon. And when we were in Germany, we went into the beautiful wine cellar and on the wall, they had this awesome list to remind people of, you know, the different spectrum of sweetness to dryness in Riesling and the names. And it's something that I learned years ago during wine certification.
And I probably remember half of them, but not all of them. So I'll put a link in here. So when you are shopping on a website like wine. com or when you are using that app that I talk about, and I love so much Vivino, where you can scan the label of a wine in the store, right? And it'll bring up all the facts and information.
Um, especially if it's a Riesling, you're going to see some of those terms like cabinet with a K. Kabinett is one example of one of the drier Rieslings. So this
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Depends on how far the fermentation went, right? The clue is going to be often the the alcohol content, right? If it's really low, 9, 10, 11 percent, well cool, means we're going to have less calories per five ounces of of, um, coming from alcohol, less calories, but it generally means there's probably some RS or residual sugar in there.
onscious of how you're being [:
ld like to try that beautiful:
4 grams per liter of sugar, the link is in the show notes to visit our website, sollevatowines if you use the coupon code at checkout, podlistener, all one word, pod, P O D, listener. I'll give you 10 percent off for being a listener and supporter of the podcast, and I can ship that wine to
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In Apple Podcasts, you can also scroll to the bottom and leave a one or two sentence review and that's huge. At the time of this recording, we've got, uh, quite a few of them, but we're looking for more reviews again so we can continue to grow and make more episodes for you. And finally, if you know someone in your life who might get a kick out of this or find these tips helpful, go ahead and share the podcast.
nd until next time, sip well.[:
Sip with Nikki is hosted by Nikki Lamberti. Production and sound mixing by Katherine Bryan. You can always send your listener questions to Nikki. at sipwithnicki. com or find us on the Sip with Nikki Facebook page or visit us on Instagram @nikkilamberti. Thanks for listening. Until next time, sip well everyone.
This is Sip with Nikki, a production of Take 10 Studios.
