Our Latest Blog Entry:

Fruit-Forwardness & Sweetness

One of the most challenging concepts to get many of my customers to understand is the difference between sweetness and fruit-forwardness in a wine. While these two qualities can go hand in hand, it is not always the case. Sweetness comes from the residual sugar (RS) present in a wine, and it can be chemically quantified. The natural sugar in grapes is turned into alcohol in the process of fermentation, and the winemaker can control when to stop fermentation to achieve the right balance between RS and alcohol. RS is measured in grams /liter: up to 3g/l can be considered “very dry” (almost imperceptible); up to 10 g/l “dry”; 10-30 g/l “off dry”; over 30 g/l “sweet”. Most of the … Read more