Sihaiwang: 'dry red' is a familiar word. Even people who don't drink must have heard the term dry red. In a dream of Red Mansions, there is a "thousand red caves (crying) and ten thousand colorful cups (lamenting)", which is often regarded as "dry red one crying". It can be seen how familiar the word "dry red" is. So what does "dry red" mean? Has anyone ever thought that wine itself is a kind of liquid. Normally, wine shouldn't be wet? Why does it say "dry red"?
In fact, in the world of wine, the concept of "dry" is not "wet", but "sweet". We usually refer to the abbreviation of dry red wine, which refers to the wine with low residual sugar, unsweetened taste or almost unsweetened taste. But this does not mean that all red wines are dry, and some are sweet.
So, what is residual sugar? How does residual sugar come from?
Residual sugar refers to the remaining sugar in the wine after fermentation, which is generally expressed in grams of sugar (g / L) per liter of wine. For example, if a wine contains 4 grams of sugar per liter, its residual sugar is 4 g / L.
In the process of wine fermentation, yeast will transform sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. If the fermentation is not complete (for example, when making port), or if sugar is added artificially (for example, when making Shelly), the residual sugar in the wine will be higher. In a word, the sugar that is not converted into alcohol by yeast is residual sugar.
According to the amount of residual sugar, wine can be divided into different types:
a) Dry / seco: residual sugar & lt; 4 g / L;
b) Semi dry / semi seco: 4 g / L & lt; residual sugar & lt; 12 g / L
c) Semi sweet: 12 g / L & lt; residual sugar & lt; 45 g / L
d) Sweet: residual sugar & gt; 45 g / L.
It can be seen from here that the residual sugar content less than 4 g / L is dry red, and the taste of dry red is not as sweet as the general wine.
Some may have doubts that dry wine is better than sweet wine. Indeed, sometimes sweetness can cover up some defects of wine. These sweet wines are relatively low in price, sweet in taste and easy to promote. But not all sweet wines are superior to dry red wine. There are many top sweet wines in the world. For example, French Sauternes, Hungary's Tokaj, Germany's beerenauslese and trockenbeerenauslese are all very precious grape wines. The quality of a wine should not be determined only by the amount of residual sugar, but also by various factors. Moreover, drinking wine is mainly for your own entertainment, no matter what type of wine, you can have a good time.