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Table of Contents
Light-bodied, Medium-bodied, or Full-bodied?
To understand the concept of weight with regard to wine, let’s use the analogy of milk.Milk comes in different cream contents: skimmed milk, the lightest, has little or no cream; semi-skimmed milk has a little more cream than skimmed milk, and is therefore heavier; while full cream milk is the thickest milk available.Similarly, wines have varying body.
READ ALSO: On Choosing White Wine
In “wine-speak”, wines are said to be light-bodied, medium-bodied, or full-bodied.
To guess what body an unfamiliar white wine will have, take a look at its alcohol content.
Full-bodied wines generally have a higher alcohol content than medium-bodied wines, which in turn have a higher alcohol content than light-bodied wines. Numerically, see the list below.
- 7.5% – 10.5% Light Body
- 10.5% – 12.5% Medium Body
- 12.5%+ Full Body
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Grapes
Other than its alcohol content, the type of grapes used to make a wine can also point to the body you can expect it to have. Chardonnays are generally the fullest-bodied white wines while Bruts are generally the lightest-bodied.
Below is a list of common types of white wines in order of increasing body.
- Brut
- Sauvignon Blanc, Fumé Blanc
- Pinot Grigio
- Riesling, German Riesling
- Chardonnay, White Burgundy
With this information, hopefully you can take some of the guesswork out of selecting a white wine. The key is, first and foremost, knowing what kind of wine you want and then looking for clues that will give you just that.
I hope you find this information useful the next time you are choosing white wine. Personally, I look forward to having fewer unpleasant surprises.
Until the next time,
Biche