The subjective sweetness of a

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

is determined by the interaction of several factors, including the amount of sugar in the wine, but also the relative levels of alcohol, acids, and

tannin Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids. The term ''tannin'' (from Anglo-Norman ''tanner'' ...

s. Sugars and alcohol enhance a wine's sweetness, while

acids In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a ...

cause

sour The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

ness and bitter tannins cause

bitter Bitter may refer to: Common uses * Resentment, negative emotion or attitude, similar to being jaded, cynical or otherwise negatively affected by experience * Bitter (taste), one of the five basic tastes Books * '' Bitter (novel)'', a 2022 nove ...

ness. These principles are outlined in the 1987 work by

Émile Peynaud Émile Peynaud (June 29, 1912 – July 18, 2004) was a French oenologist and researcher who has been credited with revolutionizing winemaking in the latter half of the 20th century, and has been called "the forefather of modern oenology". Biogr ...

, ''The Taste of Wine''.

History

''Vintage: The Story of Wine'', a book authored by British wine writer Hugh Johnson, presents several methods that have been used throughout history to sweeten wine. The most common way was to harvest the grapes as late as possible. This method was advocated by

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

and Martial in

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

times. In contrast, the

ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

would harvest the grapes early, to preserve some of their acidity, and then leave them in the sun for a few days to allow them to shrivel and concentrate the sugar. In

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...

, a similar effect was achieved by twisting the stalks of the grape to deprive them of

sap Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separ ...

and letting them dry on the vine—a method that produced

passum Passum was a raisin wine (wine from semi-dried grapes) apparently developed in ancient Carthage (in now modern Tunisia) and transmitted from there to Italy, where it was popular in the Roman Empire. The earliest surviving instruction constitutes t ...

and the modern Italian equivalent,

passito Straw wine, or raisin wine, is a wine made from grapes that have been dried to concentrate their juice. The result is similar to that of the ice wine process, but is a much older process and suitable for warm climates. The technique dates back ...

. Stopping the fermentation also enhanced a wine's potential sweetness. In ancient times, this was achieved by submerging the

amphorae An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...

in cold water till winter. Wine can also be sweetened by the addition of sugar in some form, after fermentation is completed – the German method like the ''

Süssreserve The subjective sweetness of a wine is determined by the interaction of several factors, including the amount of sugar in the wine, but also the relative levels of alcohol, acids, and tannins. Sugars and alcohol enhance a wine's sweetness, wh ...

''. In Roman times, this was done in preparing

mulsum Mulsum is a village and a former municipality in the district of Cuxhaven, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2015 it is part of the municipality Wurster Nordseeküste. It is located on Wurster Landstraße, L129, between Dorum to the no ...

, wine freshly sweetened with honey and flavored with spices, used as an apéritif, and also in the manufacture of

conditum Conditum, piperatum, or konditon (κόνδιτον) is a family of spiced wines in ancient Roman and Byzantine cuisine. The Latin name translates roughly as "spiced". Recipes for ''conditum viatorium'' (traveler's spiced wine) and ''conditum par ...

, which had similar ingredients but was matured and stored before drinking. It was also common from the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

until quite recently to sweeten wine with ''sugar of lead'', a toxic substance that increases the apparent sweetness of wines and other beverages. The practice continued well into the 19th century, although the leading was mostly restricted to very cheap wines after the harmful nature of lead was demonstrated in the 17th century.

Residual sugar

Among the components influencing how sweet a wine will taste is residual sugar. It is usually measured in grams of sugar per

litre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3 ...

of wine, often abbreviated to g/L or g/L. Residual sugar typically refers to the sugar remaining after fermentation stops, or is stopped, but it can also result from the addition of unfermented must (a technique practiced in Germany and known as

) or ordinary table sugar. Even among the driest wines, it is rare to find wines with a level of less than 1 g/L, due to the unfermentability of certain types of sugars, such as

pentose In chemistry, a pentose is a monosaccharide (simple sugar) with five carbon atoms. The chemical formula of many pentoses is , and their molecular weight is 150.13 g/mol.vintages of

Château d'Yquem Château d'Yquem () is a '' Premier Cru Supérieur'' ( Fr: "Superior First Growth") wine from the Sauternes, Gironde region in the southern part of the Bordeaux vineyards known as Graves. In the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, Ch ...

contain between 100 and 150 g/L of residual sugar. The sweetest form of the

Tokaji Tokaji ( hu, of Tokaj ) or Tokay is the name of the wines from the Tokaj wine region (also ''Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region'' or ''Tokaj-Hegyalja'') in Hungary or the adjoining Tokaj wine region in Slovakia. This region is noted for its sweet wines ...

, the Eszencia, contains over 450 g/L, with exceptional vintages registering 900 g/L. Such wines are balanced, keeping them from becoming cloyingly sweet, by carefully developed use of

acidity In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a ...

. This means that the finest sweet wines are made with

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus '' Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years a ...

varieties that keep their acidity even at very high ripeness levels, such as

Riesling Riesling (, ; ) is a white grape variety that originated in the Rhine region. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity. It is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and sparkling wh ...

and Chenin blanc. How sweet a wine will taste is also controlled by factors such as the

and alcohol levels, the amount of

present, and whether the wine is sparkling or not. A sweet wine such as a Vouvray can actually taste dry due to the high level of acidity. A dry wine can taste sweet if the alcohol level is elevated. Medium and sweet wines have a perception among many consumers of being of lower quality than dry wines. However, many of the world's great wines, such as those from Sauternes (including Barsac) or

Tokaj Tokaj () is a historical town in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Northern Hungary, 54 kilometers from county capital Miskolc. It is the centre of the Tokaj-Hegyalja wine district where Tokaji wine is produced. History The wine-growing area w ...

, have a high level of residual sugar, which is carefully balanced with additional acidity to produce a harmonious result.

Süssreserve

Süssreserve (german: Süßreserve, literally "sweet

reserve Reserve or reserves may refer to: Places * Reserve, Kansas, a US city * Reserve, Louisiana, a census-designated place in St. John the Baptist Parish * Reserve, Montana, a census-designated place in Sheridan County * Reserve, New Mexico, a US vi ...

") is a

term referring to a portion of selected unfermented grape must, free of microorganisms, to be added to wine as a sweetening component. This technique was developed in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and is used with German-style wines such as semi-sweet

or Müller–Thurgau. The technique not only raises the sugar level of the wine, but also lowers the amount of alcohol. Under German law, no more than fifteen percent of the final wine's volume may be the reserved juice. This practice is allowed also for Prädikatswein, the highest level in the

German wine classification The German wine classification system puts a strong emphasis on standardization and factual completeness, and was first implemented by the German Wine Law of 1971. Nearly all of Germany's vineyards are delineated and registered as one of approxi ...

. It is often used for semi-sweet

Kabinett Kabinett (literal meaning: cabinet), or sometimes Kabinettwein (literal meaning: a wine set aside in a cabinet), is a German language wine term for a wine which is made from fully ripened grapes of the main harvest, typically picked in September, ...

and

Spätlese Spätlese (literal meaning: "late harvest"; plural form is ''Spätlesen'') is a German wine term for a wine from fully ripe grapes, the lightest of the late harvest wines. Spätlese is a riper category than Kabinett in the '' Prädikatswein'' ca ...

, but more rarely for

Auslese ''Auslese'' (literal meaning: "selected harvest"; plural form is ''Auslesen'') is a German language wine term for a late harvest wine and is a riper category than Spätlese in the '' Prädikatswein'' category of the Austrian and German wine cl ...

and upward. The use of Süssreserve results in a different composition of sugars in the wine in comparison to

residual sugar The subjective sweetness of a wine is determined by the interaction of several factors, including the amount of sugar in the wine, but also the relative levels of alcohol, acids, and tannins. Sugars and alcohol enhance a wine's sweetness, wh ...

from arrested fermentation. Grape must contains mainly the sugars

glucose Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, u ...

and fructose. When wine ferments, glucose is fermented at a faster rate than fructose. Thus, arresting fermentation after a significant portion of the sugars have fermented results in a wine where the residual sugar consists mainly of fructose, while the use of Süssreserve will result in a wine where the sweetness comes from a mixture of glucose and fructose.

Terms used to indicate sweetness of wine

European Union terms for wine

According to

EU regulation A regulation is a legal act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously. Regulations can be distinguished from directives which, at least in principle, need to be transposed into nation ...

753/2002, the following terms may be used on the

label A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed ...

s of

table wine Table wine (rarely abbreviated TW) is a wine term with two different meanings: a style of wine and a quality level within wine classification. In the United States, the term primarily designates a wine style: an ordinary wine which is not fortifi ...

s and

quality wine Quality wines produced in specified regions (often abbreviated to quality wines psr, QWpsr or simply "quality wines") is a quality indicator used within European Union wine regulations. The QWpsr category identifies wines with Protected geographi ...

European Union terms for sparkling wine

Sparkling wine Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it, making it fizzy. While the phrase commonly refers to champagne, European Union countries legally reserve that term for products exclusively produced in the Champagne regi ...

s have ratings according to Commission Regulation (EC) No 607/2009 of 14 July 2009: Article 58 points out "the sugar content may not differ by more than 3 grams per litre from what appears on the product label", so there is some leeway. For example, a sparkling wine with 9 grams per litre of residual sugar may be labelled as either the drier, less sweet, classification of ''Extra Brut'' (because 9 - 3 = 6 grams per litre), or the slightly sweeter classification of ''Brut'' or even ''Extra Dry/Extra Sec/Extra Seco'' (because 9 + 3 = 12 grams per litre). The rules applicable to labellings before 14 July 2009 were:

Wine-producing countries

Austria

In Austria, the Klosterneuburger Mostwaage (KMW) scale is used. The scale is divided into Klosterneuburger Zuckergrade (°KMW), and very similar to the Oechsle scale (1 °KMW =~ 5 °Oe). However, the KMW measures the exact sugar content of the must.

Canada

In Canada, the wine industry measures wine sweetness as grams of sucrose in 100 grams of grape juice or grape must at 20 °C in degrees Brix.

Czech Republic and Slovakia

In Czech Republic and Slovakia, the Normalizovaný Moštoměr (°NM) scale is used. The scale measures kg of sugar in 100 L of must.

France

In France, the

Baumé scale The Baumé scale is a pair of hydrometer scales developed by French pharmacist Antoine Baumé in 1768 to measure density of various liquids. The unit of the Baumé scale has been notated variously as ''degrees Baumé'', ''B°'', ''Bé°'' and simp ...

is occasionally used. Sélection de Grains Nobles (SGN) is French for "selection of noble berries" and refers to

s made from

s affected by

noble rot Noble rot (french: pourriture noble; german: Edelfäule; it, Muffa nobile; hu, Aszúsodás) is the beneficial form of a grey fungus, ''Botrytis cinerea'', affecting wine grapes. Infestation by ''Botrytis'' requires moist conditions. If the we ...

. SGN wines are sweet

dessert wines Dessert wines, sometimes called pudding wines in the United Kingdom, are sweet wines typically served with dessert. There is no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal ...

with rich, concentrated flavours.

Alsace wine Alsace wine or Alsatian wine (french: Vin d'Alsace; german: Elsässer Wein; gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, d'r Wii vum Elsàss; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, de Win vum Elsàss) is produced in the Alsace region in France and is primarily wh ...

s were the first to be described as ''Sélection de Grains Nobles'', with the legal definition introduced in 1984.Hugel.com: Vendange Tardive and SGN
read on February 11, 2008 The term is also used in some other wine regions of France, such as

Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...

Germany

In Germany, sweetness of must and wine is measured with the

Oechsle scale The Oechsle scale is a hydrometer scale measuring the density of grape must, which is an indication of grape ripeness and sugar content used in wine-making. It is named for Ferdinand Oechsle (1774–1852) and it is widely used in the German, Swiss ...

, and below are ranges of minimum must weights for Riesling, depending on the region. Kabinett – 67–82 °Oe Spätlese – 76–90 °Oe Auslese – 83–100 °Oe Beerenauslese and Eiswein – 110–128 °Oe (Eiswein is made by late harvesting grapes after they have frozen on the vine and not necessarily affected by noble rot, botrytis, which is the case with Beerenauslese) Trockenbeerenauslese – 150–154 °Oe (affected by botrytis)

Hungary

In Hungary,

Tokaj wine region Tokaj wine region ( hu, Tokaji borvidék sk, Vinohradnícka oblasť Tokaj) or Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region (short ''Tokaj-Hegyalja'' or ''Hegyalja'') is a historical wine region located in northeastern Hungary and southeastern Slovakia. It is also ...

(also ''Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region'' or ''Tokaj–Hegyalja'') has a more graduated terminology to describe

Aszú dessert wines:

Spain

In Spain, the rules applicable to the sweet and fortified Denominations of Origen

Montilla-Moriles Montilla-Moriles is a Spanish Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) for wines located in the southern part of the province of Córdoba (Andalusia, Spain). It is bounded by the river Genil to the east, by the river Guadajoz to the west, by th ...

and Jerez-Xérès-

Sherry Sherry ( es, jerez ) is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Sherry is produced in a variety of styles made primarily from the Palomino grape, ranging from light versi ...

PLIEGO DE CONDICIONES DE LA DENOMINACIÓN DE ORIGEN «JEREZ-XÉRÈS-SHERRY»
are:

United States

In the United States, the wine industry measures the sweetness of must and wine in degrees Brix.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sweetness Of Wine Oenology Wine tasting