🍯 Wine sweetness

The sweetness of wine is described by terms fixed in EU Delegated Regulation 2019/33, Annex III. For still wines “dry” means up to 4 g/l of sugar, or up to 9 g/l if the total acidity (as tartaric acid) is no more than 2 g/l below the sugar content; “medium dry” up to 12 g/l, or 18 g/l if the acidity is no more than 10 g/l below the sugar; “medium sweet” up to 45 g/l; “sweet” at least 45 g/l.

Sparkling wines have their own scale: brut nature under 3 g/l with no sugar added after the second fermentation, extra brut 0–6, brut under 12, extra dry 12–17, sec or dry 17–32, demi-sec 32–50 and doux over 50 g/l. So “dry” on a sparkling wine is sweeter than “brut”.

Sweetness comes from residual sugar — grape sugar that yeast did not turn into alcohol. Fermentation ends by itself, is stopped by cold and filtration, or is stopped by adding spirit (mutage) in liqueur wines; wine may also be sweetened within the limits of EU oenological rules.

Every language has its own words for the same scale: trocken, halbtrocken and lieblich in German, secco, abboccato and amabile in Italian, sec, demi-sec and moelleux in French.

Why it matters to you. The term on the label is a legal range, not a taste note; high acidity makes a wine taste drier than its sugar suggests. Wines produced from 8 December 2023 must show their energy value on the label. WHO: no safe level of alcohol exists.