Transcript: Sugar/Wine -Are "DRY WINES" really "DRY"?
- Hey there, how do you do? Welcome to Lucky Rock Wine Lounge. I am Jesse Inman.
- And I'm Aaron Inman, I think, most of this episode. So we had an episode, oh, many light years ago about sweetness levels in wine, more stylistically dry wines, bone dry wines versus semi-sweet and sweet wines. Today we're going to talk more about kind of dry wines, which most people associate with, like in America, the United States, whatever you call it, US of A, most wines are considered to be dry.
- Which means USDA, two grams of sugar per liter or less. So in the wine-making world, pretty much no sugar.
- Yeah perceptible sweetness usually comes in around two grams.
- So people in America, we have been taught to love sweetness, sugar, there's sugar in everything and so wine styles are typically more in line with that palate. The higher alcohol that has more sweetness to them, just with the glycerol alcohols, the higher alcohol you get, the more stuck fermentations you have so you mean there's leftover sugar anyway, and people that are making inexpensive wines, the wines usually are maybe a little bit subpar due to the price, and so they'll leave or add sugar back in to make the wine taste less
- Oh yeah. A lot of times where you're growing, like the lower quality wines, I think it was actually Wine Folly who has great information on this kind of stuff. You can check out their website. Talks a lot about like, if you don't want residual sugar in your wine, maybe stay away from the cheaper wines. And so it's like where it's kinda gets a little deceptive is a lot of times the general consumer in America, thinks that most like say red wines, like Pinot Noir, like we're going to try today, is dry. But then the wine industry, sometimes in those, not just the lower price points, all price points does play up to that palate a little bit. So today we picked four of the top performing wines on Drizly, which Drizly really got popular
- Home delivery service for alcohol.
- Yeah. Basically like the Uber of booze in a lot of ways. And so we picked four of the most popular wines, all Pinot Noir on that list. And we decided to test them for residual sugar. So we did that. We also tested them for pH just to kind of see if they were trying to offset acidity or something like that. So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna try those four wines blind. We don't know what they are. They've been poured into small bottles with numbers on them. So we're going to taste those on camera with you. And then we've got the analysis
- We'll put up on screen
- And a key and we'll figure out how to disseminate that information. And we just really want to see are these four wines that are really sold as dry wines, do they taste dry? Kind of what's the sensory of them. And then chemically, what do they look like from a, from a residual sugar standpoint. We've come to that favorite part of the episode. We've all been waiting for it. Please, like, and subscribe
- Wine numero uno
- Wine numero one. Okay. So these are all Pinot Noir. Remember these were all top performing Pinot Noirs on Drizly. It looks like Pinot. So it tastes like Pinot, but it's got a little bit of like a
- Fake wood
- Kind of a fake wood and a little bit of like a, like a red vine kind of fake fruity finish to it, which is kind of interesting.
- And some bitterness on the palate, which is, it probably got a little bit of sugar in it because there's bitterness there, it's got some sweetness, but the sweetness wasn't enough to cover up the bitterness.
- Maybe this wine was grown in an area where it didn't get fully ripe and maybe it had a little harsher tannin from like kind of squeezing the out of that grape.
- Yeah. It's got some of the American Oak chips.
- Yeah. So it's definitely on the on the side that needed some sugar to try to give it a little bit of something.
- Yeah cause sugar can also bring things forward in the mouth cause your sweet sensors are more upfront. So if you have like maybe a really light watery wine, it'll bring the, the flavor forward. Even though it's not really flavors, it's a sweetness. It's a sensation.
- Yeah. It can get a little tricky
- It's a hack
- But let's say, I'm going to say that that wine is, it's got residual sugar above two, for sure. It's not crazy high. So if I had to throw a number out there, I'm going to say that this is probably somewhere around like five grams.
- Yeah, I was gonna say four or five
- Four or five grams per liter on the residual sugar. So they're trying to compensate for some things that maybe the wine was lacking, but didn't go like overboard.
- Yeah. So we were just discussing which wines these are. I didn't know until just now, but we have Josh, we have Decoy, we had Meiomi
- And Barefoot
- And Barefoot.
- So it's kind of, you know, they're all, I think Decoy's probably the most expensive.
- Yeah. The Meiomi, this range is probably anywhere from like careful it's fairly cheap to like in the like maybe 5.99 to 6.99 range up to where I think Meiomi probably topped out at like 25 and Decoy around 25. So that's kind of the spectrum we were talking about. This wine tastes probably like it's, it's more like the Josh, it's kind of like seen as, as, as like affordable higher end. It's like, sometimes it depends on where you're at in the country, what it's in retail for. I think it retails probably between like 15 and 20, depending on where you're at.
- Yeah.
- And I think that that wine based off the profile, that's what I'm guessing. It's the Josh, but we're going to find out and we'll tell you, and we'll you look dumb or not dumb.
- So we have wine number two
- Wine number two, Le Deuce.
- So the one, two and three all had pretty similar colors just from the bottles. It's pretty, Meiomi is pretty easy to guess. I'm pretty sure it's number four. It's like barely Pinot.
- Yeah. It's they blend some other stuff in there for sure.
- Hmm.
- This tastes like they're not hiding as much.
- [Jesse] Decoy?
- If I had to guess this is more like the Decoy, I think it's,
- What is the Appalachian Decoy? Is it California?
- It's a good question. It might be California at this point that brand's really grown. It used to be Sonoma county. And then I believe it was North Coast and now I'm pretty sure it's California, but I could be wrong.
- Yeah
- But I think that this,
- This one would say has more like a two grams.
- Yeah. Like two, two to three
- Grams of sugar?
- Yeah. They're not hiding a lot here. I think, I think that that's just maybe just a, just a hint of sweetness on it, but it tends to, it has those like cherry earthy aromas that you expect from Pinot Noir. It's lighter bodied. It's not like getting that viscosity from
- There's the bitterness isn't there needing to be hidden. It's got a little bit of a front palate, so
- It doesn't seem like it was like,
- I think we're in accordance.
- Overly extracted.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. If I had to guess, I would think that this was the Decoy and it's a decent wine
- Final answer.
- Final answer.
- Okay. Wine number three,
- The French language is so romantic,
- Especially when to make it sound German.
- All right. So we've got, this is this one doesn't have a heck of a lot of a nose to it.
- Pretty thin
- Pretty thin kind of, kind of watery, a little sweet, a little tobacco, really like tastes like kind of like
- it does taste like tobacco
- I've never been a big chewer, but I did grow up in a small town, so I know what chew is.
- You can get that from a like Russian river, sometimes tobacco or Carneros.
- It kind of has that like cherry pit kind of thing going on. This is interesting to me because
- It's pretty watery though.
- It's pretty darn lean, and they're trying to give it some body with the sugar, I think, I don't know man
- That's a toughie.
- That's a toughie cause it's not
- It's definitely the worst of the three
- I'm expecting Barefoot to just be very gross.
- Yeah
- And this isn't very gross.
- It's just not good.
- And so that's, what's really throwing me off here. I'm going to say it's the Barefoot.
- I think so, too.
- And if it's Barefoot,
- Good job, Barefoot.
- Good job Barefoot cause
- Its less than I thought it was gonna be.
- This is not total donkey trash, but it is not tasty.
- It's wine-ish.
- All right, final answer. Barefoot.
- Wine number four Okay. This is, basically it looks like Cabernet Sauvignon. So I assume it's Meiomi,
- [Aaron] It's got some color or hefty extraction as they call it in the business
- For the Pinot, for the cab drinker.
- I mean, it's got a nice nose, but it doesn't necessarily smell like Pinot.
- No
- Very dark and kind of root Berry.
- It's root beer, it's a lot of American Oak, it's a lot of extraction, it's dark has hell
- Ooh, it's incredibly sweet.
- How are these guys making a million cases?
- And this is, this is like
- It tastes like Coca Cola
- It tastes like somebody has put Coca-Cola in this wine. Or like, you know those orange creamsicles you used to get as a kid, like somebody melted one and put it into this wine.
- Dude
- It's too much for me.
- How do they make so much of this stuff?
- My body is liking it though, because my taste receptors are like very sweet
- Survival instincts kicking in
- 100% definitely Meiomi. And it's got, I'm guessing 10 grams of sugar, eight grams of sugar?
- It is on the high side.
- 12 grams of sugar?
- I mean, yeah, 12 to 15 grams of sugar.
- Wow.
- You know, if I go grab this from the Pinot Noir section at the grocery store and I'm like, oh, I'm just going to get a nice dry wine on Friday night, and I drink this. I'm like, holy heck. And I don't say holy heck
- Holy heck
- Let me tell you, and so this is darn sweet man.
- Darn darn too sweet for sure. Yeah. And I, as a winemaker, I'm insulted but as a consumer in America I guess I get it
- Yeah. All right, Meiomi final answer. Sorry. Meiomi.
- 100% Meiomi
- but you did it, I think.
- [Man Behind The Camera] All right number one was Barefoot Pinot Noir.^
- Whoa. All right. So we got smoked on that one.
- We got smoked
- Cause we said it was Josh.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- Cause we thought it was the next one up from Barefoot.
- Yeah. Okay. Fine, Fair enough.
- what's the next one?
- [Man Behind The Camera] Number two is Decoy Pinot Noir.
- Okay. So we nailed that one
- Number two is Decoy
- We thought it, yes
- [Man Behind The Camera] Number three is Josh Pinot Noir.
- Okay.
- Hew wow Josh.
- So we flip flop Josh and Barefoot.
- Yeah ,good job Barefoot. It makes barefoot even better, I guess, huh?
- Yeah. I mean, we thought that those wines were on the lower side, but we still, the, I thought that the least expensive is Barefoot.
- Yeah.
- But yeah, it's, it's a pretty cheap one.
- It's very expensive yeah, so I mean, bang for the buck I'd say.
- Bang for the buck for sure on that one. Wow. Okay. Interesting
- Cool. All right
- And so then four is Meiomi and that was distinctly Meiomi.
- And so number four was Meiomi we all knew that
- I knew it from the color alone.
- Yeah. So the barefoot was wine one, that's got 3.67 pH, and a residual of 6.9. So reasonable, I mean fair amount of residual, but reasonable
- Yeah the pH is, it's covering up flaws, not pH
- Flaws in viscosity. So, but that we were, so we were in that range. I think we said it was around five grams. Wine number two, which was Decoy, 1.8 grams 3.7. So basically we got that one right.
- 3.7 is the pH?
- Yeah
- So again, you are right on target. That's a,
- And that was clearly the best wine. Then we've got wine three, which was Josh, which that one is 3.8 and 1.6 grams per liter so.
- That's why I was, when we were tasting a Barefoot, I thought it would be sweeter.
- Uh huh, and then Meiomi wine number four, 3.68 on the pH and 20 grams per liter.
- I did, I just wouldn't imagine this, that they would ever go that high like I was, I was like, that's so sweet. I was like, but no, it can't be over 12
- 20
- 20.
- All right, folks, so let's recap this. Wine number one was Barefoot, little bit sweet.
- Yeah.
- But not too much
- But impressive for the price
- Decent for the price. Wine number two Decoy. Thought it was the most high end wine, not a lot of residual sugar, not hiding a lot of flaws there. Wine number three, not hiding any flaws really from a sugar standpoint, just maybe a little bit.
- It was a weak wine
- Just kind of a weaker wine and then wine
- Barefoot is better than Meiomi
- Yeah I mean, we're gonna just put it out there that Barefoot, I mean, price to quality ratio was pretty darn good.
- I wouldn't say it's not near the park, but it's
- I mean I'm not pouring myself a liter of Barefoot tonight, but you know, hey, it's not, it's not terrible. And then wine number four was the Meiomi and we know that that tends to be a fairly sweet wine, but we were shocked, shocked at 20 grams per liter residual sugar
- I mean we are talking the amount of concentrate that they're adding to that wine, it's like, cause they're producing a million cases of it. It's like glub, glub, glub, glub Glub, glub.
- All right folks. So we learned a lot today. Deceptively learned a lot.
- Yeah. I don't even know what I learned. I like it.
- Felt like I didn't learn, but I know I did deceptively. Alright. So we'll see you on the next episode.
- Cheers
- Peace
