Sweet or Dry—or Flabby

Ask any winemaker or tasting room pourer: “Does your chardonnay have sugar in it?” Most will say “no” so fast you think you’re talking to a politician.

The rules about what's dry and what's not can be daunting, mainly because many wineries do not want to tell consumers what's in their wine. Maksim Safaniuk/Shutterstock

Decades ago, a German winemaker pulled a label-less bottle of Riesling from a fabric bag, pulled the cork, and asked me to taste it.

It was a time when most imported German Rieslings were sweet, and the winemaker asked me, “How much sugar do you think this wine has?”