Hello, What exactly is Residual Sugar? One of the local wineries we visit gives a residual sugar reading for each of their wines. This gives you an idea of how sweet they are. What I wanted to know is how they measure this? I have a wine that started with 14% potential alcohol by volume. If I add stabilizer when the potential alcohol reaches 2% will that be a residual sugar of 2% and the alcohol content be 12%? Just curious, Tom and Shelley
Residual Sugar?
Nov 11, 2003
1 Replies
It's the sugar remaining in the wine. If you stop it at 2% PA you will have around 3.5 % residual sugar and 12 % ABV.
Stopping it is a little tougher than adding stabilizer, I don't know what is in yours. It's usually sorbate and a type of sugar, sorbate will not stop an active fermentation.
Chilling as cold as possible probably will though, go for at least 40 F if not colder. Then you want to fine and rack to try to get as much yeast out as possible so it does not start up when it warms up. That's when you sorbate, once you know it's stopped fermenting. Wines coast to a stop; if you want 3 or 4% you may want to chill before it gets there. Maybe at a PA of 3. Hope that helps. Regards, Joe
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