What is dry wine?

You will probably get quite a long answer to the question “what is dry wine?” Some people will tell you which wines they consider to be dry and others will tell you what makes a wine appear dry. 

Let’s start by saying that a dry wine can be either red or white and some varieties are easily distinguishable for those who don’t like sugar.

What makes a wine dry and not sweet? Sugar, or lack of it. That is the only thing which you can say makes a wine dry. The rest of the taste is down to the grape and how long the wine has been aged and in what. 

There are many different ways to describe a dry wine. It can be described as something which makes your mouth feel dry after you have drunk it, as something which almost evaporates, something bitter, thick or rich or as something that does not linger in the mouth like chocolate. So many different opinions. 

There are also different levels of dryness and for most people new to wine it’s perhaps better to start off with something not too dry and then to decide whether to go up or down the scale.

So which wines are considered dry? Perhaps we should use a scale with 1 being the driest and 5 being medium. One thing to bear in mind, a search of the Boutique Wineries website brings up over 500 different dry wines so we’ll choose just a few of these. 

Number 5. Elmswood Estate Chardonnay or Noble Rot Select Pick.

Number 4. Bundaleer Sparking Shiraz or Michelini Pinot Grigio.

Number 2. Windance Estate Cabernet Merlot or Chateau Reisling

Number 1. Delatite Wineries Reisling or Mount View Semillon.

Along with the varieties above, others which are considered to be dry are: Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Bordeaux and Burgundy.

One of the most famous dry wines has to be champagne, but not all champagne is dry. Brut is a definite number 1 on the list of ‘which wines are considered dry’ with Extra-Dry being just the opposite, so a number 2. There’s Sec which is probably a 5 and Demi-sec which is off the scale at 8 or 9. So the names are not necessary anything to go by, it’s always best to ask.

I think the best way to find out what is dry wine and what you consider to be a dry wine is to taste them and decide for yourself. After all we’re all different, thankfully.