Here’s a pro tip for you: If you ask a retailer or sommelier for a “dry” wine, you are likely to be offered one that has perceptible sweetness. An industry maxim says Americans think dry but drink sweet. This makes sense, given our national sweet tooth. We love ketchup on our fries, sticky sweet barbecue sauces, sugary sodas, sweet and sour chicken, cookies, cakes and more. But we have this notion that wine — fine wine, at least — is supposed to be dry, so we frown on sweet wines as unsophisticated. This prejudice should change as boomers yield to more open-minded and adventurous generations, but my recent conversations with winemakers and retailers suggest the anti-sugar bias remains strong.
