Grapes of wrath!

[fergus]

I read a wine review in a Sunday newspaper recently which made me a little concerned. First of all, people are being paid to do this, so why did my careers guidance teacher fail to inform me that there could be a career in something for which I clearly had raw talent?

Ah well. The really worrying bit, however, was the news that red wine makers are now putting more sugar in the wines in the lower cost ranges. Now, red wine is not only something I often enjoy, it has helped me keep my blood glucose pretty tightly controlled, so I really do drink it for medicinal purposes. A couple of times recently I have noticed some cheaper priced reds have actually spiked my sugar levels. These were cabarnet sauvgnons which, ordinarily, are really good at keeping sugars anchored. These Chilean cabarnet sauvignons from Tesco were admittedly at a rock bottom £3.18 a pop. The roughness is probably being masked by the extra sugar, I guess.

There are still wines which don't do this, and I could name a few (!), but has anyone else found good reds / bad reds?

All the best,

fergus

 

[Buachaille]

The sugar is added prior to fermentation to produce a higher alcohol content. If it has been fermented out to zero gravity there should be no residual sugars in the finished product. The only way to tell is to drop a hydrometer into a tube of wine - this will display the gravity. There is no other reason for adding sugars other than to reduce the cost of producing alcohol. However, you tend to get a product that is considered 'thin' to drink; i.e. it lacks body. Most British beers and lagers have sugar of some sort added prior to fermentation. Beers are not (normally) fully attenuated and there is a residual sugar content. This particularly applies to cask-conditioned beers that need residual sugars to maintain the secondary fermentation which keeps the beer in 'condition' i.e. adds the CO2 to the barrel contents as small amount of yeast converts the residual sugars to alcohol.

 

[fergus]

Thanks Bauchaille,

You sound as if you know your stuff!

The impression I got from the article was that these sugars were being added to give the wines body, as you said, and perhaps to make the cheap stuff taste a little less like paint stripper.

The difficulty I've found with reds is that they really aren't differntiated in terms of sweetness, unlike whites, which most supermarkets will grade on a scale of 1 to 5. Reds seem to vary in sweetness according to the production methods as much as the grape variety.

Time for a swift one.

All the best,

fergus