How much sugar is in wine?

At most 4 grams per litre, which comes to about half a gram in a glass of 12.5 centilitres.

European rules link the word dry to that limit. There is an exception up to 9 grams per litre if the acidity is high enough, because acids push the sweetness down in the taste.

Wine is seldom completely sugar-free. Yeast converts grape sugar into alcohol, but almost always a small remainder stays behind.

European rules tie the words dry, medium dry, medium sweet and sweet to fixed limits in grams of sugar per litre.

Dry is at most 4 grams, medium dry more than 4 and at most 12 grams, medium sweet more than 12 and at most 45 grams, and sweet 45 grams or more.

For sparkling wine, the sugar designation is mandatory. For still wine, the producer may choose whether to put the word on the label.

Brut means less than 12 grams of sugar per litre, added as dosage just before the bottle is finally closed.

The whole range runs from brut nature with less than 3 grams and without added sugar, via extra brut at 0 to 6 grams and brut under 12 grams, to extra dry at 12 to 17 grams, sec at 17 to 32 grams, demi-sec at 32 to 50 grams and doux above 50 grams.

A brut tastes drier than those 12 grams suggest. The high acidity and the carbon dioxide mask the sweetness.

Sugar in wine is grape sugar that the yeast has not converted into alcohol, supplemented in sparkling wine by the dosage.

A winemaker can stop fermentation before all the sugar is used up, for example by chilling or filtering. What is then left is called residual sugar.

In sweet wines the sugar often comes from dried or late-harvested grapes, so the juice contains so much sugar that the yeast cannot convert it all.

Since 8 December 2023, wines carry a nutrition declaration and an ingredient list, on the label itself or behind a QR code.

The European Commission has stated that the energy value and the allergens always remain on the physical label. The full nutrition declaration and the ingredients may be provided electronically, provided they are just as easy to find.

Under carbohydrates in that listing you will find of which sugars. That figure is the most useful answer to the question of how much sugar is in that one bottle.