Ever wondered does Chardonnay have a lot of sugar? There is residual sugar in almost all wine, even white wine. The best way to answer this question is to look at it from a few perspectives to understand your sugar intake. Let’s start by looking at the grams of sugar in Chardonnay and then compare this amount to other types of wine.
How Much Sugar Content Is In Chardonnay?
Every bottle of wine, even if it is made from the same Chardonnay grape, has its sugar levels. Sometimes, wine labels will tell you the sugar levels. In many cases, wine lovers have to look harder. Specifically, you typically need to look at the wine manufacturer’s website for a fact sheet or other websites to get an answer. Use these tips to find a wine bottle with low sugar and calories per glass.
Wolf Blass Yellow Label Chardonnay
This popular Australian wine has 13% alcohol by volume and 4 grams of sugar per liter. If that is too much carb content for your liking, look at some French wines below.
J. Lohr Riverstone Chardonnay
This California Chardonnay has 13.5% alcohol content and 6 grams of sugar per liter. That means a standard bottle (i.e., 750 ml) would have 4.5 grams of sugar. Further, a standard 5-ounce pour would have even less sugar.
Barefoot Chardonnay
While you’ll find this wine in the dry whites category, wine tasters would not describe it as a low-sugar wine. This white wine has 8 grams of sugar per liter. Contrast a glass of wine from this bottle to the Louis Jadot below. You will easily be able to determine which is the sweeter wine.
Cupcake Chardonnay
I’ve enjoyed this rich oaked wine several times. A 14% alcohol level is relatively high for a bottle of white wine. The wine also includes 7 grams of sugar per liter.
Dry Farm Wines Chardonnay
This American wine is becoming popular because it may have the lowest sugar level. According to the Heal Nourish Grow blog, the wine has less than 1 gram of sugar per bottle. That means that a 5-ounce serving probably has next to zero sugar.
Louis Jadot Chardonnay Bourgogne
No guide to Chardonnay would be complete without covering the wonders of Burgundy. This wine has 13% alcohol content and 2 grams of sugar per liter. Learn more about Burgundy’s great wines in this guide to the grand vin de Bourgogne. To minimize sugar per glass, this French wine is worth considering.
Calmel & Joseph Villa Blanche Chardonnay
This affordable French wine is considered extra-dry. It is a 13.% ABV wine, and it has 5 grams of sugar per liter.
Laurent Miquel Pere Et Fils Chardonnay d’Oc
Produced in the south of France, this 13% alcohol content Chardonnay wine has a 2 grams per liter of sugar content. A standard glass from this bottle can help you to pursue a low-sugar diet.
How Does Chardonnay’s Sugar Content Compare To Other Wines?
Viewing the residual sugar content of a glass of white wine like Chardonnay in isolation doesn’t tell you much. True wine pros know that it is often easier to understand wine sugar content through comparison. Let’s see if we can find the lowest-sugar wine in that spirit.
Dessert Wine
A fortified wine such as port tends to have high alcohol and sugar content. These sweet wines offer above-average sugar per bottle, so limiting them to special occasions is wise. For example, the Sandeman Ruby Port wine has 19.5% alcohol content and 95 grams of sugar per liter. Other dessert wines, like ice wines, also have higher levels than a dry Chardonnay wine. To limit your consumption, it may be wise to keep the rest of the bottle in your wine fridge.
Sparkling Wines
Brut champagne tends to have higher sugar content. Veuve Clicquot Brut Champagne has 10 grams of sugar per liter. That is much higher than most of the Chardonnay wines mentioned above. The carbon dioxide bubbles in Champagne, added by the winemaking process, make it more difficult to resist finishing the whole bottle.
If you’re going to enjoy Champagne’s relatively high sugar and calorie content, why not have something extraordinary? Find out more about Grand Cru Champagne or perhaps organic Champagne.
Late Harvest Wines
Often considered off-dry wines, late-harvest wines such as late harvest Riesling tend to have relatively high sugar content. For example, Inniskillin Late Autumn Riesling VQA has 12% alcohol content and 25 grams of sugar per liter. Of course, your calorie intake is reduced if you limit yourself to a 5-ounce glass.
Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris
What about a typical glass of other white wines? Let’s see if they have more sugar content than Chardonnay. Underwood Pinot Gris, produced in Oregon, has 4 grams of sugar per liter. That means it has lower sugar content than several California Chardonnay wines. For our following example, let’s look at an Italian wine example – Folonari Pinot Grigio Delle Venezie DOC has 12% alcohol and 4 grams of sugar per liter.
How Does Chardonnay Compare To Non-Alcoholic Drinks?
Understanding the sugar levels in Chardonnay wine is a start, but there’s more to the story. Comparing this type of wine to other drinks beyond alcohol is helpful. The health benefits of drinking wine with low amounts of sugar might not matter much if you consume a lot of sugar in other drinks.
Orange Juice
Drinking fruit juices like orange juice can introduce large amounts of sugar into your diet. A single 8-ounce glass of orange juice has about 21 grams of sugar and a 110-calorie count. Regularly drinking this much sugar can add up, especially if you also consume sugar in the wine.
Soft Drinks: Coke and Pepsi
Regarding sugar per liter, Coke and Pepsi have a very high amount of sugar per liter. Let’s take a look at the official nutritional information.
A twelve-ounce (0.35 liters) can of Pepsi or Coke contains 39 grams of sugar. That is far more sugar than you will see in most dry wine, which includes most of the Chardonnay I’ve seen. Regularly having soft drinks makes it difficult to have a reasonable calorie intake.
Switching to a diet version (i.e., Diet Coke and Pepsi) can help you avoid natural sugar. However, the other sweeteners in the drink might encourage you to eat other sugary foods. Moderation in drinking soda pop is helpful. I’ve found it helpful to abstain entirely from these drinks for
Starbucks Frappuccino
This popular sweetened coffee drink offers significant sugar content and caffeine. According to the Starbucks website, a standard 12ounce serving of Espresso Frappuccino Blended Beverage has 140 calories and 28 grams of sugar. In comparison, Chardonnay does not have a lot of sugar.
Black Coffee
Black coffee means adding no sugar, milk, cream, or anything else –coffee beans and water. This is my standard morning drink. According to WebMD, black coffee has 0 sugar content and two calories. Of course, wine with coffee is a different story.
How To Minimize Weight Gain When Drinking Chardonnay?
Your health goals might be focused on reducing your weight. One of the best ways to lose weight is to reduce or eliminate alcoholic beverages from your diet. Every year, I observe “dry January,” where I avoid all wine and other forms of alcohol for at least 30 days. That practice also tends to help with weight loss.
The other option is to reduce your wine drinking to once or twice weekly. Specifically, consider having a single standard serving (i.e., a five-ounce pour) of Chardonnay once a week. If your daily sugar intake is otherwise low, occasionally drinking some white wine like Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc will not add much sugar to your diet.
Does Chardonnay Have A Lot Of Sugar?
Dry Chardonnay wine has a relatively low sugar content. Some versions of Chardonnay, like Dry Farm Wines, have less than 1 gram of sugar. That said, some richer versions of Chardonnay have 8 grams of sugar per liter. Compared to dessert wines, Chardonnay wines do not have much sugar. That said, it is unwise to rely on calories from alcohol in your diet. Instead, it is better to have wine occasionally.
