What is ‘back sweetening’ and why does it matter?

An exception in the US has long been sweeter “jug wines”, favoured by novice drinkers and often those who drink to excess. However, the popular success of Kendall-Jackson’s slightly sweet Vintage Reserve Chardonnay, first introduced with the 1982 vintage and reportedly the result of a stuck fermentation, led to more and more producers of affordable American wines gradually increasing their sweetness.

Unlike the European Union and its many wine-producing countries, the US has almost no rules on how wine is made, as long as it is safe to consume, doesn’t make outlandish health claims and contains consumption warnings on the label. The amounts of alcohol, residual sugar and acidity in wines are almost totally unregulated.

What Kendall-Jackson had discreetly popularised became more obvious in 2013 when wine giant Gallo introduced Apothic, an American table wine that made its way across the Atlantic and into the Tesco stores of the UK. There, it caught the attention of English wine blogger Jamie Goode.

“There’s a new red wine that’s becoming a bit of a hit,” Goode wrote at the time. “But the wine writing fraternity are up in arms. It’s Apothic red, from California, and leading UK critic Tim Atkin has described it as ‘undrinkable’. The problem? It’s sweet. It has 16.4 grams per litre of residual sugar.”

Goode also noted that “residual sugar levels have been creeping up, and producers have found that regular punters quite like reds that are marketed as dry, but which taste a little sweet”.

A bridge to red wine?

Among the many comments that followed was a defence or rationale by Andrew Halliwell, who then as now was making wine in Spain. “Obviously this wine has no real sense of place and isn’t going to appeal to most of the people who read your blog,” Halliwell wrote. “Yet there are a lot of people who will enjoy this wine – and the point you make about perhaps serving as a bridge to red wines is a valid one.

“As a winemaker, it´s kind of frustrating to be asked to make this kind of wine, when you’d rather be going for DRC. But at a large winery, it’s a business, there’s a market, and you need to make money.”

The controversy now going on in the US is largely because there is no way for a drinker to know before ordering whether a wine is sweet or dry. And even gourmet restaurants are taking into account that some people who love fine food also like a sweet table wine.

Scott Zoccolillo, co-owner of La Fête restaurant in Delaware, also sees the issue as one of progression. “We have a single wine by the glass that has perceptible sugar,” he says, “and it is one of our least-selling wines by the glass. Guests looking for sweeter wines are a bit younger and have less wine experience. The touch of sweetness is a starting point for their wine journey.”

Missing the boat

It appears that more winemakers in Europe’s traditional regions fear they are missing the boat transporting drinkers – especially younger ones – on that journey.

According to INAO spokesperson Alexis Sannier: “The question of integrating sweetening into the specifications of French appellations arose during a review by the standing committee of the CNAOV [Comité National des Appellations d’Origine relatives aux Vins] on 28 November 2024 of a proposed amendment to the specifications of the Bordeaux appellation, including the traditional mention ‘Claret’…

“These wines,” Sannier continues, “are currently characterised by a ruby to lightly purple colour, moderate tannic structure and an aromatic profile dominated by red fruits. The introduction of sweetening into the specifications was considered consistent with the style of these wines.”

These re-defined Clarets are expected to be among the first of the new wave of sweeter European wines to reach the export market. This loosening of the EU’s production rules, even as it tightened labelling regulations, as well as the open-arms French response to it, certainly comes as a sea change, but one with restrictions. The EU limits the means of back sweetening to grape must, concentrated grape must and rectified concentrated grape must, the latter meaning grape must which has all non-sugar elements, such as acids and minerals, removed.

From vintage 2025

And, while France’s INAO will permit the back sweetening of table wines up to 9g/l beginning with the 2025 vintage, the individual AOC regulation rulebooks – the cahiers des charges – must be updated to explicitly allow this practice, and the sweetening agent is required to have strict traceability information.

However, the EU will not require the degree of sweetness be written out on the wine label itself. That will be accessible only via the label’s QR code as part of its “nutrition declaration”.

To some degree, Germany and Austria among European countries have already addressed back sweetening. “In Austria, the wine law allows the sweetening of Landwein and Qualitätswein,” says Austrian Wine Marketing Board spokesperson Georg Schullian, which is in line with EU regulations.

“In Germany, only grape must may be used to sweeten Qualitätswein, Prädikatswein and Landwein after fermentation,” says German Wine Institute spokesperson Ernst Büscher. “Nowadays, wine fermentation in Germany is predominantly temperature-controlled, meaning that the wine’s natural residual sweetness can be preserved by cooling the wine down. If back sweetening is used, it is almost only for wines in the entry-level segment.”

Burgundy says no

Not all European countries are rushing to sweeten affordable wines, nor are all regions in France. Cécile Mathiaud, spokesperson of the Burgundy Wine Board (BIVB), says: “The answer is ‘no’ for Bourgogne. It is not a subject at all.”

Similarly, wine producers in Spain, Italy and Portugal, and their exporters, confess to not having broached the topic. “We do not have any knowledge of this modification, nor that is going to be implemented in Spain,” declares José Luis Benítez, general secretary of the Federación Española del Vino.

Brian Larky, founder of Dalla Terra, which imports about 40 producers into the US from almost all regions of Italy, says: “To my knowledge, none of our producers back sweeten, and likely none of the wines in the categories that we work are doing this.”

Outside Europe, sweetening is already widely permitted. According to Magdalena Pesce, general manager of Wines of Argentina: “Unlike the specific 9g/l recently approved by the INAO in France, Argentina regulations define the permitted sugar level based on the commercial category of the final product.”

Thus dry is up to 4g/l, off-dry up to 19g/l, semi-sweet up to 45g/l and sweet at above 45g/l.

Back sweetening is also permissible in Chile, according to Wines of Chile global director Julio Alonso.

Jim Clarke, country manager of Wines of South Africa, reports: “Regulations allow the addition of sweet reserve in amounts up to 5% of the volume of the final wine, or 15% for fortified wines. ‘Sweet reserve’ is defined as a partially fermented wine must that has a residual sugar of at least 130g/l. The sweet reserve has to come from the same cultivar, WO and vintage as that of the finished and labelled wine.”

No time for sweet talk

When it comes to the marketing of sweeter wines, many importers, distributors and retailers in the US are reluctant even to discuss back sweetening, as “being sweet” has traditionally signalled being an inferior table wine. The same is true with many producers who make both premium and entry-level wines. Even those brands that supply technical sheets on their websites do not usually publish the amount of a wine’s residual sugar.

Martyn Rolph, head of buying for Berry Bros. & Rudd, is an exception in addressing the issue. “It’s a practice used for modest wines at very low price points – value supermarket options,” he says. “It isn’t a factor in premium/collectable wines, which is our end of the market. We’re very proud of our Berrys’ Own Selection range, which are great-value, early-drinking representations of key regions, but even those affordable wines in our range would never be produced in that way.”

Rafael del Rey, a Spanish analyst of the global wine trade, advises taking in the bigger picture. “From a pure market point of view, thinking about the consumers rather than regulation, there is a clear trend towards more ‘fruited wines’ as a means to refer to sweeter wines,” he says. “It is a clear trend for popular wines addressed to non-experts, but also clearly extended in many countries where wine is less traditional – for example, India and many others.

“Whether or not a higher degree of sweetness should be allowed for specific wines will finally depend on the regulations of specific regions or for specific wines. But it should always be the right of a producer to choose whether to be part of a more restrictive community or be free to adapt to changing consumers’ habits.”

Kristy Sun teaches winemaking at California State University in Fresno, and notes that back-sweetening techniques are on the syllabi of both beginner and graduate classes. “I begin by reminding students that the dosage in sparkling wines, including Champagne, is a type of back sweetening,” Sun says. “And I tell them to remember that all wine is subjective.”

Sweetness definitions

A dry wine is one that usually converts almost all of its sugar into alcohol during fermentation. Sweeter wine, usually those with more than 5g/litre residual sugar, however, can be produced using a variety of methods:

• Naturally sweet wine: Grapes with a very high level of sugar will result in sweetness being left behind after the fermented alcohol kills the yeast and stops fermentation. This category includes grapes that are late-harvested and begin to lose water while gaining sugar; grapes that are dried after picking to attain more sugar; and grapes for icewine that remain on the vines until thoroughly frozen (or are frozen artificially).

• Chaptalised wine: Sugar in some form can be added before fermentation, usually to produce more alcohol, but occasionally for more residual sweetness as well.

• Low-alcohol wine: Fermentation can be halted during fermentation, leaving behind wine that may have only 5% to 10% alcohol, and that is thus considerably sweeter than wine that is completely fermented.

• Fortified wine: Wines such as Port and Madeira, among others, are partially fermented before neutral spirits are added to kill the yeasts and thus stop fermentation. This results in sweeter wines with higher alcohols, usually at around 20% ABV.

• Back-sweetened wines: After fermentation, grape must or other sugars can be blended back into the wine for additional sweetness. Sparkling wines that are not labeled as “nature” or something similar are back-sweetened through the use of a sugar dosage.