Yellow Tail Pinot Grigio
Hailing from Australia, Yellow Tail Pinot Grigio is an amazing wine for both cooking and sipping. It draws you in with the aromas of green apple and pear, and the palate is crisp, clean, and refreshing. Its extremely affordable yet still very sippable. Pinot Grigio offers a wonderfully fruity, mineral character that is perfect for cooking seafood while remaining neutral and incredibly versatile.
Where Can You Buy Dry White Wine
Typically wherever wine is sold you can buy drink white wine. Simply ask the sales staff to help you out if you are struggling and dont forget to consult the back label of the wine too. For example, many Rieslings have a dry to sweet scale on the back which makes life super easy, e.g.
Here are some wine shops to try :
Difference Between A Dry Wine And Wine That Dries Out Our Mouths
Wines that are dry lack sweetness. Wines that dry out our mouths have tannins. Tannins act like an astringent and suck the saliva out of our cheeks. The wine jargon is very confusing because in reality dry is the opposite of wet, not the opposite of sweet. Most white wines do not have tannins, so its safe to assume the wine is dry and not drying.
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Is Chardonnay Dry Compared To Pinot Grigio
Pinot Grigio also known as Pinot Gris is another popular white wine that you’ll most often find produced in a dry style. Unlike Chardonnay that is commonly aged in oak barrels and seemingly tastes sweet, Pinot Grigio is almost always aged in stainless steel barrels that give it a drier taste . ItalianPinot Grigios tend to have higher acidity while Pinot Gris from New World wine regions like California and New Zealand typically have softer acidity and an oily mouthfeel.
Dry Wine: What It Is And Your Guide To The Best Types
McKenzie Hagan | May 07, 2020
The experience of drinking wine should be lively, fun, and delicious. With hundreds of different varieties and flavors, theres something for everyone in the wine world. From full-bodied reds to crisp rosés, tasting notes range from sweet and floral to citrusy and earthy.
While wine is fun, sometimes it can also be confusing, especially when it comes to deciphering the terminology when trying to select your next bottle. Dry wine is one of those industry terms that can be particularly confusing. How can a liquid be described as dry? Youre not the first person to be vexed by the label of dry wine on a restaurant menu or at a wine tasting.
In this article, well break down what the term dry really means when it comes to wine and go over the different types of dry wine to try.
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Dry White Wine: Comprehensive Guide For Beginners
Do you want wine for cooking lighter foods like pork, chicken, veal, shellfish, and vegetables? Then dry white wines may be the choice for you.
You may opt for Chardonnay, Viognier, Chenin Blanc, or Viura which are intensely flavored and thicker white wines that can be used to make gravy, and cream sauces.
Dry white wines are preferred for cooking but are also great for drinking alone and as an accompaniment with your meals. Chefs love using dry white wine in dishes such as chicken, mushrooms, and pork to deglaze the brown bits used in a pan sauce.
Additionally, chefs prefer dry white wine since it adds acidity to dishes like risotto.
As a beginner, it is important to differentiate dry white wines from other types like dry reds and regular dry wines. Dry wines are different from other types due to the method of production and fermentation.
Wine producers take advantage of the various stages of fermentation to ensure they provide the consumers with a variety of different wines.
In this article, we will take a look at the way dry white wine is made, what differentiates it from other wine types, and the grapes that make the drink.
Moreover, we will dive into the various types of dry white wines, the best ones for drinking, and the best ones for cooking dishes like sauteed fish. Feel free to take a look at the frequently asked questions section for more details on the wine.
Is Chardonnay A Dry Wine
Chardonnay is definitely a dry white wine. It is made as either a wooded wine or an unwooded wine, with the former being the most common. The wine is aged in oak barrels, which adds to the flavour profile and lets the earthier vanilla notes sing louder than the tropical fruits and citrus that are also found in a classic chardonnay. How long the wine is aged in oak barrels will determine how wooded it is. If it is only left in the barrels for a short time, the wine is usually a lot fruitier in taste. If it is aged predominantly in the oak barrels, the vanilla and flinty notes will be a lot stronger.
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La Crema Sonoma Coast Chardonnay
Produced in California, La Crema Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is full-bodied and incredibly aromatic. Upon opening, youll instantly notice the aromas of lemon and apple, with subtle hints of vanilla and butterscotch. Youll find notes of apricot, lemon, gala apple, oak, spice, yellow plum, melon, butterscotch, caramel, and honeydew on the palate. The bold flavors are beautifully balanced by the acidity, making for a wonderfully round bottle of wine.
What Do They Taste Like And What Foods Do You Eat With Them
Like any type of wine, white wine can vary from lighter bodied to rich and full-bodied. While light, fruity wines may be great simply as an apéritif or as an accompaniment to light seafood dishes and shellfish, richer dry whites may pair beautifully with richer fish, poultry and cheeses.
For more tips and ideas about pairing red wines with food, be sure to check out our Food and Wine Pairing section!
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A Complete Guide To Dry White Wine: Sauvignon Blanc To Pinot Grigio
Chermaine CheeAugust 23, 2021
A dry white wine is a summer favourite around the world. The crisp flavours are best served ice cold, making it a refreshing drink on hot afternoon or evening. Of course, you can enjoy white wines any time of year and you really should. But they are generally known as wines for hot weather.
The best part is that there are a lot of dry white wines out there with an array of flavour profiles. This means that you can find the right choice for your palate, and you can explore a lot of different options within the same range.
Jump To a Section Below
What Is A Dry White Wine
To put it simply, a dry white wine has little to no residual sugar. Thus, it is not sweet. Dry wines, red or white, are made from grapes that have been fermented to a low level of sugar content. Dry wines are among the best summer wines or drinks because they are crisp, refreshing, and are the best to pair with a meal.
The level of natural sugars in wine grapes varies on the varietal and how late they were harvested. In malolactic fermentation, yeast converts these sugars into alcohol but not before some have been transformed to a sweeter form.
Once there is less than 1% residual sugar , wine becomes dry, while wines with higher levels of residual sugar are categorized as sweet, medium, or off-dry. A medium-dry wine will have about 5-12 g/L, while an off-dry or semi-sweet wine contains 10-30 g/L. Anything that has 31 g/L or more is considered a sweet wine.
In the context of dry and sweet wines, it is worth noting some of the most common misconceptions about them. Sweet and fruity can be two terms that get easily misunderstood in discussions about different types of alcohol.
A term like “fruitiness” doesn’t necessarily mean it has any bearing on how much sweeter it may taste. Sweet wines are not always fruit-forward. Meanwhile, many dry wines still have an associated level of sweetness due to their natural sugars or residual sugar from oak aging processes.
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What Does Dry Wine Mean
Before we get into the details of Chardonnay, let’s dive into the basics of what the term “dry” means. When talking about food, the opposite of sweet is sour, salty, or savory. When it comes to chocolate, the opposite of sweet is bitter. But when discussing wine, the opposite of sweet is dry.
As detailed in our complete guide to winemaking, the fermentation process determines how sweet or dry a particular wine becomes. If the winemaker lets the yeast eat all the sugars in the grape juice and convert them to alcohol, there will be less residual sugar, resulting in a drier wine. However, if fermentation is halted before the yeast has finished consuming all the sugars in the wine grapes, it will result in a sweeter wine.
To put a number on it, any wine with fewer than 10 grams of sugar per liter is considered dry. For reference, the standard bottle of wine contains 0.75 liters of wine . But not all dry wines are created equal.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the different levels from driest to sweetest with corresponding white wines:
Most wine labels don’t explicitly state the sugar content, so it helps to brush up on what types of wine are typically dry or sweet. To that end, don’t miss our must-read guide to sugar in wine.
Dry White Wines For Cooking
To buy a bottle intended for cooking, head down the wine aisle of your local store and select a crisp, dry white wine. There are a myriad of great choices but we tend to favor pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc. These lighter-style wines will bring out the flavor of your dish without overwhelming it. Avoid robust and oaky white wines like chardonnay. Once the food is cooked, the oak-influence may cause your dish to taste bitter.
Make sure you aren’t spending too much! When choosing a bottle of white wine to cook with, it should be between $4 and $10 a bottle. There’s really no reason to spend more, especially because once you open it, you have about 48 hours before it expires due to oxidation.
If you cook with wine often, don’t be afraid to purchase something boxed. We like Black Box Pinot Grigio . It’s shaped conveniently to store in your pantry and lasts about six weeks because of the airtight wine-bladder. The wine is neutral in flavor and low in alcohol, making it the ideal cooking wine. You may be surprised to know that many great restaurants and chefs use Black Box as their cooking wine. It’s neutral, economical , and leads to delicious results.
Now that you know what type of wine to cook with, what dish will you make? Will it be Roasted Salmon with White-Wine Sauce or Linguine with Clams in Pepper Broth? Perhaps you will braise chicken thighs in white wine. There are so many delicious options just waiting for the right bottle of wine.
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Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc
Oyster Bays Sauvignon Blanc is elegant, light to medium-bodied, and bursting with fruit flavors. Its definitely a dry wine, but the dryness is balanced by flavors of red berry, gooseberry, and tropical fruit. Youll also notice hints of oak and exotic spices. This wine is fresh, bright, acidic, and an absolute pleasure to sip.
Dry Mouth Feel From Tannins Alcohol Levels
Lets look a little further into dry wine misconceptions. When some people experience the dry mouthfeel or the pucker factor, as some call it after drinking red wine, they consider that a dry wine. This sensation comes from the high tannin level. Tannins are naturally occurring bitter and astringent compounds that come from the grapes skin. Some wines like Syrah and Cab have more tannic skins.
Theres also a misconception that dry wine is always higher in alcohol. If someone likes wine with a higher ABV , they might think theyre drinking dry wine. Wrong again. Our brains fool us with this phenomenon because, in wines with higher alcohol content, we taste more flavors from the alcohol and less from the fruit. At this point, our taste buds relay the message, Hey brain, theres less moisture here, which would rationally make us think that the wine is dry, but no. There are dessert wines with a very high alcohol content that are plentifully sweet. Another wine myth busted!
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Peter Zemmer Pinot Grigio Riserva Giatl 2017 145% 75cl
Best: Overall
Pinot grigio has suffered from its own success. The UK discovered this Italian white wine in the 1990s and took to it like a duck takes to water. Soon, industrial quantities were being produced and consumed, and, almost inevitably, the quality began to deteriorate. So, its good to be able to report that great pinot grigio wine is still being produced.
This award-winning example from winemaker Peter Zemmer is made from grapes hand-picked from the Giatl vineyard around the village of Cortina in northern Italy. Aromatic, with notes of passion fruit and elderflower, it bursts on to the tongue with a textured fruitiness balanced by a measured acidity. Pinot grigio has never tasted so good.
Wine For Cooking Versus Wine For Drinking
When picking out a bottle of wine to cook with, first throw out your preconceived notions of what makes a vino great. Most of these are founded on your knowledge of drinking wine and when it comes to cooking, you’re going to burn off a majority of what can differentiate an expensive bottle from a less expensive one. When selecting a bottle to cook with, your dollar is going to go a lot further than it does with drinking wine. That said, there is a thing as too cheap. Avoid wines labeled “Cooking Wine” as the poor quality will diminish your dish.
Have half a bottle of white wine leftover from dinner two nights ago? Feel free to use that up instead of pouring it down the drain. Sometimes cooking is about using what you have in order to make a delicious meal that’s way tastier than the sum of its parts. That’s the magic!
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How To Cook With A Dry White Wine
There are many ways to cook with dry white wine. But, the important thing to keep in mind is to use white wines that complement the dish to be made. For example, use a wine with intense flavors for meat or pasta dishes.
Meanwhile, use those that are lighter, acidic, and have citrus notes for vegetable and seafood dishes. The most common white wines used in cooking are Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc.
What Are The Different Types Of Dry White Wine
I have mentioned a few above, and also please note winemakers do get creative every now and then. So what you might think is dry, might not be if this is the case however, they will usually state it on the bottle.
Typically youll find wines made from these grapes dry:
- Sauvignon Blanc
- Grüner Veltliner
- Semillon
If you come across wines made from the above grapes and you see terms like late-harvest, dessert, fortified, off-dry for example or sec, demi-sec or doux on a bottle of champagne/bubbles then you probably have a sweetie in front of you!
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Is Sauvignon Blanc A Dry White Wine
Yes! Its possibly one of the driest white wines out there alongside Albarino which we covered on the blog only a few weeks ago. Sauvy B is super crisp and refreshing. Its typically a cool climate wine which is also a factor to helps to determine dryness in a vino. I.e. the warmer the region, the more the region will thrive at making sweeter style wines. Like for instance, right here in the Swan Valley, theyre well-known for their awesome fortified wines.
I think what makes Sauvignon Blanc really dominate in the dry white wine world is because of it being the green juice of the wine world. By this I mean, its typically described with green notes from cut grass to fresh herbs, gooseberries and also passionfruit, grapefruit, peach and sometimes even jalapeño!
What Is The Driest White Wine
Muscadet is considered the driest white wine on the planet with citrus notes and mineral tastes. Muscadet comes from Melon de Bourgogne grapes that give the drink a sharp, tangy, but yet delicious flavor. This dry white wine originates from Loire Valley in France.
Muscadet goes well with oysters giving it the title of the perfect oyster wine. It blends well with many seafood dishes and other types of food due to its moderate alcohol levels that do not overwhelm the food. It is recommended to consume it in under three years of production if you are going to drink it.
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Types Of Dry White Wines Used In Cooking
Due to their moderate alcohol content and high acidity, wines like Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio and unoaked Chardonnay are perfect for cooking.
Oaked Chardonnay have hints of sweetness and flavors of vanilla and caramel which are perfect for cooking crème desserts.
- Dry Sherry
This wine is great for deglazing which makes it perfect for cooking soups, chicken or even sauteed vegetables.
- Dry Marsala
Dry Marsala adds complex flavors to any dish. Adding it to chicken or veal dish makes it spicy and nutty.
- Sparkling Wine
Sparkling wines like Chenin Blanc, Champagne and Moscato add acidity and sweetness to a dish. It can be used in making crème dishes as well as pork, turkey and lamb.
- Madeira
Madeira is well-known for adding spiciness and earthy flavors to dishes making it best for cooking beef and veal and also for making dips and sauces.
Now, that we have covered the best dry white wines to cook with. Check out the list of Best Red Wines to Cook With!
