'What does it mean if a wine label says off-dry?

Some riesling, ‘gewürz’ and pinot gris from countries such as Australia and New Zealand can also turn out to be, if not fully sweet, then distinctly off-dry, with honeyed hints. Fine, if that is what you want, but a bit tricky if you were expecting a bone-dry style. Although New World wineries are generally better at providing back label info, if you are buying these styles of wine – especially at the premium end – do use a merchant or informative website which can give you sugar levels of individual bottles.

In Alsace, from the 2021 vintage onwards, producers have been obliged to label their still whites in one of four sweetness categories: sec, demi-sec, moelleux or doux (from driest to sweetest) either using one of these terms or by indicating where the wine sits on a sliding scale. And look out for supermarket own-label wines which sometimes use a numbered scale to indicate how sweet a wine is.

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