Many wine drinkers state they love dry red wine. How many of these drinkers actually like dry red wine. The driest red wines I have sampled in some time are La Rioja Alta. These are wines aged 3 or more years in oak and the natural sugars are fermented to produce bone dry wines. That does not mean they don’t have any fruit elements on the nose or palate but you will not get any sweetness on these wines. Here are my tasting notes of a recent tasting of these wines.
Many of the under $20 red wines have higher levels of residual sugar to mask the poor quality of the wines. The Wine Folly has two really good discussions on this concept.
Wine Folly breaks down some of the more popular wines in this article. Another article shows sugar levels of different types of wine.
Some of the most popular brands in the US have higher levels of residual sugar than the more traditional wines in each category. Red Blends are becoming a code word for “sweeter” wines. Here is a good article on the grams per liter of some popular wines. More info on higher residual sugar on brands such as Layer Cake Velvet.
My favorite wine hangout is Wine Berserkers. You will find the more knowledge wine drinkers around the world on this site. No local wine educators or wine bloggers except me hangout there. What does that tell you? A discussion came up about one of the most popular wines in the world. Read post #8 about Meiomi Pinot Noir. Don’t forget the over priced Prisoner wines which I can’t stand!
What is the point of this blog? Well I think it is to start looking at do you like semi dry wines (the above) or dry wines like La Rioja Alta (way above). There are times I can get behind the Columbia H3 which is semi dry and times when I want a bone dry red like a La Rioja Alta 904.
Remember fruit on the nose and palate is not the same as higher levels of residual sugar.
Cheers,
John