What Kind Of Wine Is Keto Friendly

Can You Drink Wine On The Keto Diet

We love pampering our guests and helping them live life to the brim with decadent, handmade meals and our portfolio of luscious, award-winning wines. Often we encounter visitors who are committed to a particular dietary lifestyle, which usually translates to a handful of hefty restrictions. The most popular of these is the keto diet. Many Ketonians long for a celebratory glass of wine and worry that theyll erase all their progress if they choose to indulge. If youre on the keto diet and wonder if you can drink wine, read on the answer might surprise you!

The Keto Diet and Ketosis

In a nutshell, the keto diet is a low-carb, high-fat lifestyle that focuses on moderate protein content to help you lose weight, improve your health, and increase your energy. The idea is that you need to stick to a low daily allotment of carbs to keep your body in the state of ketosis.

When you keep your carbohydrate intake low enough, your body will enter ketosis, a metabolic state in which your body will begin burning fat for energy. Your liver uses stored and consumed fat to produce ketone molecules for energy. This is great news for your brain, which thrives on glucose and ketones, but it can be difficult to say goodbye to your favorite sweets and indulgences like wine.

Alcohol and Ketosis

The Consensus

• Cabernet sauvignon

• Zinfandel

How to Enjoy Wine on the Keto Diet

Choose Chaumette

What Has More Carbs Red Or White Wine

On average, red and white wines have carbohydrate contents in the 3-4g range. However, some white wines have lower carbs as compared to red wines. Thus, more whites are keto-friendly than some reds.

Dry white wines also have low carb content and a fruity taste, making them a better alternative to sweet wines with high carb content.

Keto Wine #: Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet sauvignon is one of the most beloved red wines in the world. And the dry varieties are some of the keto-friendliest. Consider pairing cabernet with keto meals dripping with healthy keto fats, along with mildly flavored dishes. Its own own robust flavors means it doesnt mix well with spicy foods.

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Keto Wine #: Dry Riesling

Riesling is a white wine produced from aromatic grapes from Germanys Rhine region. These grapes are known for their flowery fragrance and high level of acidity. Alongside Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc, Riesling is considered one of the top three white wine varieties.

A dry riesling makes a great pairing with the fattiest keto fish, and is a staple for wine drinkers on the pescatarian keto diet.

Can You Have Wine On The Keto Diet

Fortunately, there are some keto-friendly wines that you can drink while maintaining ketosis.

The best keto and low-carb wines are so-called dry wines with as little residual sugar as possible.

Since many wines are low in sugar due to their natural aging process, we dont necessarily rely on a low-carb wine designation.

Sweet wines, unlike dry wines, have a much shorter fermentation process. Because the yeast feeds on the grapes natural sugars during the fermentation process to produce alcohol, the result contains less sugar.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that wine, in general, contains hardly any sugar.

The shorter the fermentation process, the more sugar remains. This leftover sugar contributes to the sweet, fruity taste and many carbohydrates in the wine.

For this reason, you should look for the term dry when choosing wine so it doesnt throw you out of ketosis.

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Warnings About Consuming Alcohol On A Ketogenic Diet

Alcohol shouldnt be consumed heavily or on a consistent basis. There are many negative health benefits, but in the short run dont forget the following when consuming your alcohol:

• Calories. Alcohol still counts as calories and will slow fat loss down. Alcohol is burned as a priority by the body.
• Tolerance. Most people on a ketogenic or low-carb diet experience a much lower tolerance to alcohol than usual. Be careful with consumption.
• Hunger. Many people experience heightened levels of hunger when drinking this can lead to bad decisions or just over-consuming in general.
• Dehydration. Since keto is a natural diuretic, you have to be watchful of how much water youre drinking alongside the alcohol. Try to drink 1 glass per 1 shot and extra water before bed.
• Added sugars. Mixers, liqueurs, and many alcohols will contain some type of flavoring or added sugar. While many companies are publishing nutrition information, you should try to be prepared and research nutrition beforehand.

Weve read a lot of articles that mention drinking light beers and very dry wine to avoid carbohydrates, but dont get out of hand with consumption. Some light beers can contain over 10g net carbs and some dry wine can average over 8g carbs per glass.

Its also important to note that alcohol does contain calories. There is no function in the human body to store the energy in alcohol, so your body will take a preference to metabolize alcohol over fat.

Keto Diet And Alcohol: The Best And Worst Drinks To Choose

• Bottom Line

The ketogenic diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet used by many people to lose weight and improve health.

It typically requires careful planning so that you stick within your daily carb allotment and keep your body in ketosis. This may mean giving up sweets, snacks and other high-carb indulgences like soft drinks and alcohol.

However, there are plenty of low-carb alcoholic beverages that you can enjoy in moderation even on a keto diet.

This article gives you the best and worst alcoholic drinks to choose on the keto diet.

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Wines To Avoid When On Keto Diet

These wines contain high carbohydrate levels, so it is best to void them because they cannot be classified as keto wines.

• Fortified Wines – These wines may have up to 14g carbs per glass serving.
• Eiswein or Ice Wine – It typically has 5g of carbs.
• Late Harvest or Spätlese – It can have up to 20g of carbs.
• Dessert Wine – It may have 30-40g carbs per glass.
• Süss or Doux – It typically contains 7.5g of carbs.

The Alcohol Content Of Mulled Wine

Typical wine used for mulling has a high alcohol content, ranging from 12% to 14.5% of Alcohol by Volume .

People often wonder whether heating evaporates some of that alcohol, which can be worrying if you want every ounce of your moneys worth. The answer to that is, it does. However, you will only lose about 15% of the alcohol after heating a small amount you can rectify with a little bit of Brandy.

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The Definitive Guide To Keto Diet Friendly Wines

If you have ever been on a diet where you have to count your macros you already know how hard this is. Did you hear about the keto diet? No! Constantly checking the carbs, fats, and protein in whatever you are eating, then logging it all. It can be a tiring task to do, but beauty takes work.

So, what happens when you love a glass of wine every once in a while, but you can only consume up to 20 carbs a day? If you follow our guide, your diet wont even be affected. It also works for people who simply dont want to drink wines that are overloaded with sugar and carbs.

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Chart Of Carbs In Dry Red Wine

Dry red wines all have similar amounts of carbohydrates – ranging from about 4 grams to 5.5 grams per 5 ounce serving. The lowest carbs in red wine is non-Burgundy Pinot Noir, while the highest is Pinot Noir from Burgundy. While there are sweet red wines and red dessert wines, it isn’t terribly common, but do make sure the red wine you are purchasing is dry.

Here is a list of popular dry red wines and their carbohydrate count according to the USDA.

Carbs in Dry Red Wine

As a general rule, the bigger bodied the wine, the higher the carb count. The lighter bodied the wine, the lower the carb count. Always check the label or call for nutritional information about any wine before consumption if you are concerned about the carb counts.

How To Pick Keto

If you’re following the keto diet and sourcing only about five percent of your daily calories from carbs, even 5 grams per glass can add up quicklyso stick to low-sugar wines that are bone dry and come from a cooler region. “A cooler-region wine minimizes the potential due to the lack of sugar evolved inside the grape,” says Sweders. “By fermenting it dry, you remove all residual sugar, cut total carbs and sugar.”

Consuming alcohol is generally discouraged if you’re on the keto diet because it slows fat burning and ketone production. However, there are ways to enjoy it very moderately , provided you eat a keto-friendly meal beforehand and choose the right type of alcohol.

“When choosing to have wine, it is best to have some fat at that sitting so you don’t get an isolated blood sugar spike or reactive hypoglycemia from the processing in your liver,” says Ali Miller, R.D., L.D., C.D.E., a registered dietitian who runs a virtual ketosis program. Lucky for you, that means a charcuterie board is just the thing to nosh on while you sip some good low-carb wine.

With that in mind, here’s a guide to five delicious, low-carb wines with the least amount of sugar that won’t leave you feeling deprived.

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Health & Wellnessi Tried The Ketogenic Diet For 30 Days Heres What I Learned

What makes a wine keto-friendly

First, its good to know a little bit about how wine is made. The first step is choosing the grapes, which vary by type and region. Once the grapes are picked, theyre crushed and pressed, ultimately turning them into a juice. At this point, they will either turn into white wines or red wines . The juice is left to ferment, which is a process where the sugars turn into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Red wines and white wines are fermented in different ways, using different additives, chemicals and yeast strains, but regardless of the type, they all end up in a barrel where they age and eventually are bottled.

Like all things with Keto, the overall carb and sugar content are the factors to consider in wine. This is determined by a few things. How the wine is made, the alcohol content and how dry is the wine.

Residual sugar

Another critical factor is the residual sugar left in the wine. Sugar is always going to be in grapes, after all, its a naturally sweet plant. However, they can ferment long enough so that all the sugar turns into alcohol. Residual sugar is the natural sugar left over by grapes after the fermentation process. Residual sugars can be left behind by stopping the fermentation process early, which would produce a sweeter end product . However, if a winemaker allows the wine to fully ferment, the result is a drier wine with lower RS and, therefore, fewer carbs.

Keeping on track with ketosis

Wait Can I Drink Wine On Keto

Well, it depends. Manybut not allwines are keto-friendly. It all comes down to how much residual sugar they contain. Ideally, a keto wine will have zero residual sugar and less than 13.5 percent ABV .

When it comes to finding a wine that fits within the keto diet, your safest bet is to err on the dry side. Wines with high residual sugar content will taste sweet, while dry wines are relatively low-carb. But even wines marketed as dry can contain up to 30 grams per liter of residual sugar, so a true zero-sugar wine is hard to come by. And since the U.S. has no labeling requirements, its all about looking in the right place: Wines from France, Italy and Greece are usually drier, as is anything categorized as bone dry.

Here, 10 wines that are keto-diet approved.

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Terms That Show A Wine Is High In Carbs

If you are counting your carbs, make sure the wine you purchase is dry. Avoid words on the label such as:

• off-dry
• semi-sec
• demi-sec

All wines labeled with these terms have a high residual sugar content that pumps up the carb count of the wines. If a wine tastes naturally sweet, it is high in residual sugar and thus carbs.

How To Determine The Carbohydrates In Wine

Finding out the sugar content of any given wine is fairly easy. Just find out how many grams of carbohydrates the wine contains, then divide that by the wines volume.

Here are a couple examples:

Pinot Noir contains roughly 3.4 grams of sugar carbohydrates per 5 ounce serving. That means its 2.4% residual sugar, and therefore contains 2-3 g sugar per Litre. Not bad at all.

3.4/142 = 0.024 = 2.4%

Chardonnay, another low-carb wine, contains 3.18 grams of carbohydrates per 5 ounce serving. This 2.2% residual sugar, equates to 2-3 g/L slightly better than Pinot Noir.

3.18/142 = 0.022 = 2.2%

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How To Buy Keto

For a wine that suits a ketogenic diet, I recommend a three-step selection process:

• If the residual sugar content is on the label, youll choose an option with less than 4g/L. However, you will rarely find this information.
• In this case, choose a grape variety on the list below from a traditional winemaker you trust.
• Watch out for the designation as a dry wine. However, this can carry a range of 4 to 9 g/L of residual sugar due to the acidity.

However, with mass-produced wines from the supermarket, you must be careful even with the following keto-friendly grape varieties. Also, when it comes to wine, many customers are lured by the addictive factor of sugar.

Against this background, a well-known saying is mostly true:

Life is too short to drink cheap wine.

Best Keto Wine Brands To Buy

To be honest, Im not a big fan of wine brands because they often imply mass production. And the masses love sweet wine, which is why sugar is often added to these wines.

The best keto wine is traditionally vinified. Thats why you should find a winery or two you trust. Ideally, its near you, and you buy the wine from the farm.

Otherwise, the certification of the area of origin can help. If in doubt, a wine app can give you helpful information.

Besides Germany and Austria, France is still a safe bet for traditional quality wine with little residual sugar.

Pinot Noir is my favorite of the keto wines, as it is very dry on the one hand and brings the health benefits of red wine on the other.

Theres nothing wrong with a classic Bordeaux either. Usually, it is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc.

But if you are located in the United States and not a Bordeaux wine nerd like me, there is a great keto wine brand.

Dry Farm Wines is a brand dedicated to low-carb wines. Their concept stands for biodynamic, keto-friendly wine with residual sugar of less than 1 g/L and lower alcohol content.

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How To Order Wine On Keto

Just say I want your driest white wine. This is a sure fire way to get a good low carb option when you are dining out. Dry is the opposite of sweet in the wine world.

If you dont think your waiter knows anything about wine, you can further specify by saying Make sure it is not sweet. That should cover you if youre dining out, but continue reading for an in depth guide to your best wine options on a keto diet if youre looking to build your collection.

What To Serve With Mulled Wine

Although you can enjoy mulled wine without any food, there are some pairings hard to pass up. For example, anything with a salty cheese will make an excellent wine dish. Our Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Pecan Coleslaw or these Low-Carb Mini Bacon Chive Cheeseballs are exceptional for their blue and cheddar cheese flavors. You can also serve it with a savory meal, like this Crustless Spinach Quiche. The rich, savory flavor balances the sweet spiciness of the mulled wine.

If you want to keep the mulled cranberry wine for dessert, you can pair it with any keto-friendly cookies. One of my go-to holiday recipes, these irresistible Low Carb Pecan Shortbread Cookies are bursting with pecan and vanilla flavors that are perfect for rounding off the deep cinnamon essence from this classic wine.

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