Wine tends to be the bane for many dieters due to one reason: sugar. This is understandable, due to the nasty effects sugar can have on health. However, wine sugars aren’t always overboard. Some actually might have lower levels than you think…
Wine Sugars: From Low To High
Sugar in wine
Wine sugars are an important part of the fermentation process. It’s these sugars which the yeast converts into alcohol as part of the fermentation process. As a result, the longer fermentation goes on for, the less sugar there will be. By contrast, if the fermentation is stopped quickly, then there will be more sugars in the wine.
Therefore, a lot of times the alcohol content of a wine can give you hints about it’s sugar levels. High ABV wines tend to be pretty low on residual sugars. However, lower ABV wines will probably have higher amounts of sugar in them.
Lower sugar levels
Wine sugars vary based upon the type of wine in question. Many wines which are “dry”, for instance, will have only 1-3 grams of sugar per liter. This makes them very good options if you’re looking for wines which have the minimum amount of sugar content.
Semi-dry and sparkling wines fall somewhere in the middle. Semi-dry wines tend to have around 10-30 grams of sugar per liter, depending on if they’re semi-dry or “off-dry”. Sparkling wines like champagne can have around 6-20 grams per liter, but this can changes for certain dessert wines.
High sugar levels
There’s two main wine groups which tend to have the highest amounts of wine sugar. The first of these are fortified wines. These wines, which have had extra alcohol added to them, can have all the way up to 150 grams of sugar per liter. Many of them usually hover around the 50 grams range, however.
The wines with the most sugar in them tend to be late harvest wines. These wines are very sweet, no doubt due to the high levels of sugar they have. In fact, they can reach as much as 200 grams of sugar per liter! As a result, you’ll want to avoid these choices when cutting back on your sugar intake.
