The Five Levels of Sweetness in Wine

Did you know there are 5 levels of sweetness in wine?

In case you ever see these terms below on a wine list or at a bottle shop, here’s the breakdown on what each means:

1) Dry Wine: A wine that has no sugar.

2) Off-Dry: Wine that has a tiny amount of detectable sugar. Gewürztraminers and Brut Champagne are both great examples here.

3 & 4) Medium-Dry & Medium-Sweet: Wines with noticeable sugar. Medium-dry is less sweet than medium-sweet.

5) Sweet: In these wines, the sweetness is the star of the show. Examples of a sweet wine include Port, certain styles of Sherry, and Sauternes.

Fun fact: There’s an entirely separate set of terms for the presence of sugar in sparkling wines… but I’ll cover that in a later post.