A soft wine doesn't mean it's sweet

Many times we hear about soft wines. We think they are sweet, but the surprise is that they are often completely dry wines. In fact, very often there is confusion between softness and sweetness. These are two completely different sensations that affect different senses. Sweetness is a primary sensation that is felt on the tip of the tongue. Softness is a tactile sensation that is perceived between the tongue and the palate. Sweetness therefore always requires a more or less high sugar residue. When we talk about sugars, we are talking in particular about fructose or glucose. Think, for example, of some sweet wines such as Sicilian passiti. The softness, on the other hand, always depends on the glycerol concentration in the wine. A colorless, tasteless and odorless substance that has a significant viscosity and that accentuates the delicate and round smoothness of the wine on the palate. Glycerol is formed many times from dried grapes and can therefore also be found in sweet wines.

Sweet and soft. But glycerol also derives from long aging processes in barrels or barrels and therefore we can also find it in great red wines such as Barolo, Brunello, Bordeaux or Burgundy, which, however, are decidedly dry wines, therefore without a sugar residue. Amarone is a wine that always contains large quantities of it as it derives from dried grapes and is liked precisely because of its enveloping and warm softness, accompanied by alcohol that serves to make it smoother on the palate.

Even white wines can be soft. An example of this are Alsatian wines that always maintain a particular fatness due precisely to a significant amount of glycerol.

So, always to make a good impression, when you drink a dry white wine that, however, feels special and round, you say that it is soft. Let's leave the sweetness only to sweet wines!

Fabio De Vecchi