Most red wine is dry. Across 6,172 reds currently listed at the LCBO, the median sugar content is 3 g/L — about 0.4 g in a 5 oz glass, and 2.3 g in a whole bottle. 97% sit at or below 10 g/L, the usual cutoff for dry. Sweet red wine is the exception: only 21 bottles land semi-sweet, and just 3 measure above 120 g/L.
That is why a generic "reds are dry" chart fails people. The dry majority is real; the sweet tail is also real, and it is what a lot of shoppers are actually hunting. This page is the map for both — same numbers, both directions. For one grape at a time see the Merlot sugar guide, the Chardonnay sugar guide and the rosé sugar guide.
How to read this chart
Every bottle is placed by residual sugar in g/L. LCBO "Style" notes (Off-dry & Fruity, and so on) are tasting impressions; they do not always match the lab number. We use the number.
| Band | Sugar | Bottles |
|---|---|---|
| Bone Dry | < 1 g/L | 1,125 |
| Dry | 1–10 g/L | 4,779 |
| Off-Dry | 10–35 g/L | 244 |
| Semi-Sweet | 35–120 g/L | 21 |
| Sweet | > 120 g/L | 3 |
Is red wine sweet?
Usually no. 1,125 of these reds are bone dry (under 1 g/L), and the everyday Cabernet, Pinot Noir and Merlot pack sits around 2–3 g/L. Ripe fruit and soft tannin read as "sweet" on the palate without adding sugar. If you want a red that is actually sweet, skip the flavour copy and sort by g/L — the shortlist is below.
Sweetest red wines
These are the highest sugar reds in the database right now. Recioto, Mavrodaphne, kiddush wines and a few commercial "smooth" reds live here. A typical dry red is 3 g/L; several of these are twenty to forty times that.
| Wine | Sugar | ABV | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kotrotsos Mavrodaphne of Patras Sweet Red 2020 | 130 g/L | 15.2% | $16.85 |
| Rashi Vineyards Joyvin Red KPM | 123 g/L | 6% | $13.35 |
| Le Ragose Recioto della Valpolicellla Classico 2020 | 122 g/L | 13.5% | $58.95 |
| Roscato Rosso | 94 g/L | 7% | $13.00 |
| Masi Angelorum Recioto della Valpolicella Classico 2018 | 85 g/L | 14% | $31.25 |
| Ben Ami Zmora Semi-Sweet Cabernet Sauvignon KPM 2021 | 79 g/L | 12% | $23.95 |
| Quintarelli Recioto della Valpolicella Classico 2015 | 79 g/L | 14% | $285.00 |
| Hafner Batsheva Kiddush Red Organic KPM | 55 g/L | 12% | $27.95 |
| Riunite Lambrusco Frizzante | 54 g/L | 8% | $13.00 |
| Giacomo Borgogno & Figli Cannubi Barolo 2019 | 53 g/L | 14.5% | $282.00 |
How much sugar is in a glass of red wine?
For the median bottle, a 5 oz (148 mL) pour is about 0.4 g of sugar — a tenth of a sugar cube. Cola in the same glass is around 16 g. The catch is the spread: a bone-dry pour is effectively zero, while Kotrotsos Mavrodaphne of Patras Sweet Red 2020 at 130 g/L is about 19.2 g a glass . The chart exists because "a glass of red" is not one number.
Red wine sweetness by grape
Single-varietal medians from the same dataset. Pinot Noir and Tempranillo run a touch drier; Primitivo is the everyday red that actually trends off-dry. Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon sit in the middle — the "Merlot is sweeter" idea is texture, not sugar.
| Grape | Median sugar | Bottles |
|---|---|---|
| Pinot Noir | 2 g/L | 463 |
| Tempranillo | 2 g/L | 142 |
| Cabernet Sauvignon | 3 g/L | 367 |
| Shiraz | 3 g/L | 193 |
| Malbec | 3 g/L | 160 |
| Merlot | 3 g/L | 151 |
| Primitivo | 10.5 g/L | 34 |
| Zinfandel | 12 g/L | 6 |