The Sweet Fallacy: How To Buy Wine Like A Pro
Wine shopping can sometimes be an overwhelming and complicated endeavor for the uninitiated. There are so many different varietals, regions, and styles of wine, it’s easy to walk into even the most well-organized wine shop and feel totally lost. Part of that is the deep complexity of the noble vitis vinifera itself, but the larger issue is a systemic misunderstanding of how to talk about wine. Most people simply have not been introduced to the vernacular to describe what their tastes are or what they are looking for. Our job in the industry is to be a Rosetta Stone, a guide to decipher the sometimes contradictory descriptors a shopper may possess. Ultimately, no one is wrong about their tastes, but more often than not, people simply don’t know how to express what those tastes are. So, let’s talk about something that seems to be a perennially confusing topic for wine buyers:
“It’s not sweet, right?”
I get this question several times a day, and I have somewhat of a complicated answer. While, of course, there are sweet and off-dry wines, the vast majority of wines you will find in a wine shop will skew dry. That being said, most people’s apprehensions about sweet wines have little to do with actual sweetness in the wine, but rather cultural perceptions of sweet wines, which, in the U.S. at least, are colored by underlying societal prejudices. In fact, consumer trends suggest Americans actually LOVE sweet wines, but many burgeoning wine enthusiasts are under false impressions about sweet wines they may not even be aware of consciously. Sweet wines are almost all inherently lumped in with wines like cheap Moscato; frivolous and unserious. As with most things in our world, there are a lot of preconceived notions that pour into our collective hatred of sweeter wines.
It’s not that everyone must love off-dry wines. It’s that no one gives them a chance. It’s that the obsession with being anti-sweet has gotten to the point where people make it a personality trait: Where people feel that they’ll be seen as unserious or uneducated about wine if they like a sweeter wine, so they ask for something that doesn’t even have any fruit notes. Wine is made from a fruit, it’s going to have fruit notes, sweet or not. Where people ask for the driest white on the list, caring nothing about the other qualities of the wine, but thinking that the drier the wine, the better it is, and the better they are for knowing that.
When I get the “sweet” question, I always redirect it. As a consumer, you should think about reframing that question as well. It’s not going to help you find the wine you are looking for. Instead, I like to think of wine on an XY axis and prompt the customer with the following questions. You can almost use it like a flow chart.
Are you looking for a lighter bodied wine or a fuller bodied wine?
Are you looking for something on the earthy side or something a bit more fruit forward?
Do you have any regional preferences?
With those questions in mind, it’s far easier to find a wine that best suits your tastes. We can help you narrow down your search more quickly. If you are looking for a lighter-bodied, earthy wine, we may direct you to Burgundy. If you are looking for a full-bodied, fruit forward wine, we may steer you to a Napa Cab. Unless you are specifically looking for sweeter wines, avoid the subject entirely when you do your shopping, and instead, use the axis of light/full, earthy/fruity. And if you do happen to be looking for a sweet or off-dry wine, all the better to be upfront about it! A great starter for the off-dry-curious is the 2021 Max Ferd. Richter Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett Trocken (dry) Mosel $23.99. Even though this Riesling is listed as Trocken (dry), it only comes in at 9.5% alcohol, so there just a little hint of sweetness on the palate, balanced out by a blast of acidity. Those who are a tad more adventurous should try the 2020 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese Mosel $39.99. At 7.5% alcohol, the sweetness is much more pronounced, but the acid on this wine is tremendous, keeping it refreshing and wonderfully food friendly (hello, spicy Thai food).
There should be no shame in trying or enjoying sweeter wines whatsoever. It’s not the job of somms and wine merchants to break the stereotype that all sweet wines are just cheap Moscato, it’s to teach wine lovers there’s nothing wrong with liking cheap Moscato in the first place. Wine preferences should be free of judgement. But as a consumer, knowing how to ask for what you’re looking for is half the battle.
- Zaitouna Kusto, Burgundy & Germany Specialist