On a warm day, particularly one spent seaside, there are few drinks as satisfyingly crisp as a dry white wine. But what makes a wine a ‘dry wine’ and which whites fall under this category?

What is a dry white wine?

The answer is simpler than you may have thought: a dry white wine is simply one that isn’t sweet – it’s a white wine that doesn’t contain residual sugars from the grapes used to make the drop. This makes sense, right?

In sweeter wines, of any hue, the winemaker will ensure the fermentation process is kept shorter so that the yeast doesn’t ‘eat’ all the sugar (or convert it to alcohol). When a dry wine is made, however, the fermentation period lasts longer, which encourages the yeast to feed off more of the sugar. Dry wines are therefore lower in sugar than sweet wines.

Which type of white wines are considered dry?

The term ‘dry’ is often misused when describing wine, but some examples of dry white wines include sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio, pinot gris, chardonnay and riesling. The wines may still taste fruity, but they are not sweet and generally boast a crisp character. In fact, they generally contain less than 10 grams of sugar per litre.

Of course, there are variations in which winemakers might produce sweet versions of these traditionally ‘dry’ wines, but, in most cases, these will be dry white wines.