Sweet vs. Fruity

What's the difference and why does it matter?

Is it sweet or is it fruity?

Once upon a time, I used to say I hated sweet wine. I don’t feel bad about it; this is a pretty common statement from people who drink a fair amount of wine and even have a decent amount of knowledge about it. Nonetheless, I was wrong. The right amount of sweetness in the right style of wine with the right other factors to balance it is delicious, and it’s exactly what you need to pair wine with certain foods. I also know a number of people who claim to love only dry wines but drink loads of Meiomi Pinot Noir, which has 19.4 g/L residual sugar. For those who are not up on residual sugar measurements, that is a lot; most truly dry Pinot Noir contains less than one g/L.

Why does it contain that much sugar? In short, because a lot of people like it. Meiomi is wildly popular, because sweetness is appealing to many palates, and it’s easier and cheaper to add sugar than to ensure just the right amount of fruitiness in your grapes to give similar appeal without residual sugar.

On the other side of this equation are the many people who tell me they only like sweet wine, but then they are often perfectly happy with the Sauvignon Blanc I serve them, or even one of our Cabernets that is particularly fruit-forward. They swear up and down that these wines are “sweeter,” but the truth is they are just as dry as their more bitter tasting counterparts.

The perception of sweetness in some dry wines is related to the interconnection between our senses of smell and taste. Our sense of taste only detects five basic tastes: salty, bitter, umami, sour, and yes, sweet. The sweetness you actually taste on your tongue comes from the presence of sugar. However, about 90% of what we think we taste actually comes from our sense of smell, which picks up a much wider range of aromas/flavors. Grapes release the aromas of other fruits, which we associate with sweetness because of the natural sugars in those fruits. When we smell strong fruit aromas, we perceive sweetness in the wine - even if there is no sugar in it at all.

Sometimes this fruitiness or perceived sweetness is balanced by other characteristics in the wine. Tannins are a big one, because they dry out the mouth and contribute bitterness that makes us experience the wine as less fruity and perceive less sweetness in it. Competing aromas of herbs, vegetables, and oak-related things like spice, tobacco, coffee, and leather can also influence our perception of sweetness. Finally, acidity in the wine balances our perception of sweetness, making a wine that would otherwise be cloying quite lively and appetizing. Conversely, some wines with extremely high acidity need a hint of sweetness to keep them from feeling like they’re ripping your teeth off your face, and to add richness, as in many sparkling wines. Most Champagne has some amount of sugar added, and without it, many people find Champagne quite bracing because of the acidity level, even if they normally claim to love only dry wines.

Try a little experiment!

Sometimes we do weird things to keep our own bodies from fooling us when it comes to tasting wine. This is one of those things that you might want to try at home rather than in public. Next time you’re drinking wine, try plugging your nose while you take a sip, swish it around, and swallow or spit it. If the wine actually contains sugar, you will taste it even without the use of your nose. If it is simply a fruit-forward wine, without the influence of smell, you will correctly perceive it as dry.

Does this matter? What I taste is what I taste.

I spend a lot of time telling people that what they taste is correct, and they’re allowed to like what they like without justifying it to some wine snob or feeling intimidated about liking the wrong thing or describing the wine incorrectly. If you’re just drinking the wine on its own, that is absolutely true. However, sweetness vs. fruitiness can actually matter, especially when it comes to pairing with food. Food will affect the taste of wine more than wine affects the taste of food, and encountering sweetness in your food will make your wine taste more bitter. It’s important to pair a wine with more sweetness than your food: not just more fruitiness, which will be flattened by any sweetness in the food, but actual sweetness that is perceived by your taste buds.

Photo by Hanna Målin Hegner on Unsplash

Even with a dessert, those sweet wines still need the balance of acid, and some of the world’s sweetest wines also have rip-roaring acidity. Acid keeps the sugar from feeling flabby or tiring on your palate, and heightens your enjoyment of the sweetness in the dessert as well as the wine.

Acidity seems like a big deal. How do I learn to detect that?

Again, maybe try this at home rather than in public. Take a good sip, swirl it around your mouth so it hits all the areas of your palate, and then spit or swallow. Then hang your head forward, and count how long you can feel saliva coming from the sides of your tongue. Bonus wine geek points if you leave your mouth open so you can watch the spit collect on the floor below you (or, you know, in a cup). More saliva = more acidity. Everyone has a slightly different perception of acidity, so you can learn how acidity affects you by practicing this technique with all your wines.

How do I learn to tell the difference?

If you want to educate your palate, you can try out a few compare and contrast options using wines that are dry but fruity, dry-presenting but slightly sweet, sweet with low acid, and sweet with high acid. Some of these wines wouldn’t normally be on my recommendations list, but it’s for science.

Dry but fruity: Beaujolais, Valdigue, most moderately priced Argentinian Malbec, Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio from Friuli.

Dry-presenting but slightly sweet: Meiomi as mentioned above, but Apothic, Menage a Trois, and many other value-priced American brands contain quite a bit of residual sugar to give them that beloved “smooth” character. Jammy Zinfandels can also qualify.

Sweet with low acid: Low-priced Gewurtztraminer, American Moscato, pretty much any wine labeled “sweet red,” as well as descriptors on the bottle like “smooth,” “lush,” “rich,” or “sultry.” See also: jammy.

Sweet with high acid: Sauternes, Moscato d’Asti (the real Italian kind), good quality German Rieslings in a variety of sweetness levels (there are also dry ones, so look for Spätlese, Auslese, etc.), Hungarian Tokaj.

Now for the truly important question: what are you drinking with your leftover pumpkin pie?

The sweetness requires a slightly sweeter wine, but pumpkin pie is also fairly savory and spicy. 10 or 20 year Tawny Port is always a safe choice, but I’m currently in love with Madeira and will be having mine with a 10 year Verdehlo, which is somewhere between off-dry and medium in sweetness. Cheers!