Sweet Wine Term

Sweet is almost the default wine choice for many new wine drinkers. These wine drinkers grew up eating tons of candy. They grew up drinking HiC, fruit juice and Coke. Their tongues are VERY heavily biased towards sweet flavors. They naturally seek these same sweet flavors in the world of wine.

Wine definitely has sweet options! Many wines though tend to be "dry". Dry does not mean "not wet" in wine. Dry means "not sweet". It is like the difference between a coffee with 8 creams and 8 sugars, vs a coffee that is black. The black coffee would be the dry wine.

If you like sweet wines, that's fine! There are many out there for you to choose from. It's also worth it to start to try drinking less-sweet wines, though. They can offer other flavors and styles that go better with food, and your taste buds will adjust over time.

Generally speaking there is NO way just looking at a bottle if it is going to be sweet or dry. You can make some guesses. A "late harvest" wine is picked when sugars have extra time to gather so those are normally sweeter. Ice wines, picked when the grapes are frozen, are generally very sweet. Other than that, though, you have to read the description of the wine to make a guess. A given grape - for example Riesling - can be made in a sweet style or a dry style. It all depends on the winemaker's desires.

Wine Sweet Dry Tasting Chart
Sweet Red Wines
Wine for a Sweet Tooth
Dry Wine Term


Wine Glossary Main Listing
S Glossary Words



All content on the WineIntro website is personally written by author and wine enthusiast Lisa Shea. WineIntro explores the delicious variety and beautiful history which makes up our world of wine! Lisa loves supporting local wineries and encouraging people to drink whatever they like. We all have different taste buds, and that makes our world wonderful. Always drink responsibly.