Wine Experts? (red wine, vs, top, grape)

[blueherons]

A girlfriend told me that red wine has less sugar than white wine.

Does anyone have any information on this?

[ScarletG]

Originally Posted by blueherons

A girlfriend told me that red wine has less sugar than white wine.

Does anyone have any information on this?

I would think it would depend more on the indivdual wine than just if it's red or white There are very sweet, high fructose, reds and drier whites.

Compare two specific vintages...not such a broad category as red or white.

[gwynedd1]

Originally Posted by blueherons

A girlfriend told me that red wine has less sugar than white wine.

Does anyone have any information on this?

I would not generalize that given port wine, however red wines are typically a little lower in acid which can tend to lower the tendency to balance acidity with sugar. There is somewhat of a cultural trend that seems to me also that there are more sweet whites. However there are many dry whites.



So basically no, there is no general rule that would be reliable enough to say that.

[Attrill]

Yeah, different types of wine are so different that you can't just compare red vs. white.

The process of wine making at it's most basic level is just yeast eating the sugar in grapes and converting it to alcohol. Eventually there's so much alcohol (or not enough sugar) that the yeast can't keep going. Different yeast strains can tolerate different levels of alcohol, and that is the main factor in how much sugar is left in a type of wine. In some styles of wine the yeast is intentionally stopped to keep it sweet, but that is done in varieties of both red and white wines (i.e. port and muscato). It has nothing to do with a wine being red or white.