Greetings, fellow wine lovers!
You’ve probably already heard positive things about how a glass of wine each day can be good for you. But, if you’re on a health kick, you might be concerned about how much sugar is in a glass.
Why You Should Watch Your Sugar Consumption
Consuming too much sugar can lead to unwanted weight gain. And if you currently have a weight loss goal, then you should try to limit or curb how much sugary substances you intake. Otherwise, you put a spanner in the works, and it could take you longer to reach your goal.
Or, if you suffer from diabetes or have borderline diabetes, you may wish to pay special attention to the sugars you consume in order to keep your blood sugar levels on a nice even keel.
Sustained high blood sugar levels can lead to hyperglycemia, whereby the vessels that supply blood to your body’s organs become damaged. This in turn can increase your risk of coming down with heart disease, kidney disease, nerve problems, vision problems and stroke.
So you’re certainly doing the right thing by reading articles like this one that can help you take a measured approach to your enjoyment of wine.
In this article, we can help you manage your sugar intake via your wine consumption, by examining which wines have the least amount of sugar in them. Please feel free to scroll ahead if you wish.
And without further ado…
Does Wine Contain Sugar?
The fermented grapes that your wine is made from have naturally occurring sugars. The yeast that turns the grapes into wine, for want of a better word, “eats” up most of these sugars.
However, there’s usually a little sugar that remains in the mixture once this process is completed, referred to as residual sugar..So, as you might imagine, wines that are made from grapes that are highest in naturally occurring sugars tend to produce sweeter wines with more sugar.
But that’s not the full story, however. Some winemakers add extra sugar, in the form of cane or beet sugar to their wine mixture before fermentation, in order to produce wine with a higher amount of alcohol.
This process is known as chaptalization. It is usually done when the grapes are not as ripe as the winemakers would like.
Which Types Of Wine Have The Least Amount Of Sugar?
Red, white, rose and dessert wines all have varying levels of sweetness and quantities of sugar. So to make things a little easier, we’re going to look at averages. Depending on the alcohol and residual sugar content your calorie intake varies.
The figures we’re using come from the United States Department of Agriculture, and we’re looking at standard pours of 5 ounces.
An average glass of red wine contains 0.9 grams of sugar.
An average glass of white chardonnay contains 1.4 grams of sugar.
So the clear winner here is red wine, which typically provides 0.5 fewer grams of sugar.
And just to give these figures a little more context, a sweet dessert wine, which is typically served in a 2 – 3 ounce glass can contain as much as 7 grams of sugar, which is more than 7 times that in a 5 ounce glass of red wine, and 5 times as much as that in a 5 ounce glass of white chardonnay.
Rosé wine contains more sugar still, coming in at a whopping 35 to 120 grams per 5 ounce standard pour.
Why Drier Wine Has Less Sugar
The drier a bottle of wine is, the greater the chance that the yeast has eaten all of the sugars in the grapes. And this in turn means that there is less residual sugar in the wine. And to be a little more specific, dry wines have between 1 and 3 grams of sugar per liter.
But the good news is that if you are looking to convert to drinking dry wines in order to consume less sugar, you still have plenty of options open to you.
Examples of popular dry red wines include:
Examples of popular dry white wines include:
- Sauvignon Blanc
- Chardonnay
- Pinot Gris
- Chenin Blanc
- Moscato
Low Alcohol Wine Vs Low Calorie Wine
The higher the alcohol content of the wine, the less residual sugar it contains. But strangely enough, this does not necessarily mean that it’s lower in calories. In fact, the opposite is true. The lower the alcohol content, the fewer the calories in the wine.
What Is The Healthiest Wine?
We would argue that the healthiest wine to drink is Pinot Noir. It’s a dry red wine made from Pinot grapes. These grapes have a thin skin, so the resulting wine contains low levels of tannins but high levels of resveratrol.
Wrap Up
So, if you like to enjoy a glass of wine or two, but don’t want to consume too much residual or added sugars, then you should avoid rosé wines and dessert wines.
And if you’re just as happy with a red wine as with a white wine, then go for red if you are watching your sugar intake. And preferably, the drier, the better.
But, as we mentioned earlier, a wine that is lower in sugar does not necessarily mean that it’s lower in calories, and in fact this is often a good indication that the wine is in fact higher in calories.
In America, there’s yet to be a legal requirement for winemakers to state how many calories or how much sugar is in each bottle of wine, so please take what you have learned in this article on board, so you can best decide which is the right wine for you.
Related Articles
We also have some related articles that you might want to check out. There’s one titled “Can diabetics drink wine?” which is available on this link, and one titled “Can you drink wine on keto?” which is available on this link, and one titled “Is wine healthier than beer?” which is available on this link.
