Basically, sweet is the opposite of dry. I always thought dry was describing that feeling you get with some wines where your tongue gets all dry and cottony. Turns out that's tannins, or tannic. Dry is just the absense of sweetness. And sweet is based on the amount of "residual sugar" in the wine. Acid is that feeling of mouth watering like you sucked on a lemon. Wine Folly has a super helpful page to help learn about different wine descriptors, as well as a plethora of information all about wine.

There is a range of sweetness in wine that is based on the amount of "residual sugar" present, which is sometimes listed on the bottle. Residual sugar is the amount of glucose that was not converted to alcohol during fermentation. Since sweet wines tend to be higher in sugar, they also tend to be higher in alcohol - and higher in calories (ugh). At Wine Sweet Wine, we focus primarily on semi-sweet (around 30-50g/L residual sugar) to medium sweet (50-120ish g/L residual sugar) and sweet/dessert wines. To help get a visual, Coca Cola would be placed towards the end of the medium sweet spectrum. Again, Wine Folly has some great information about sugars and sweetness in wine here.

We personally love Wine Folly and Wine For Normal People. I listen to Wine For Normal People as a podcast on my way to work. We also live near a Total Wine that hosts occasional classes and store events to teach about wine (and other liquors). And if you're REALLY serious about learning about wine, there's always The Texas Wine School. They provide certification classes in learning about wine, although we don't got time for that right now (even though we'd absolutely love to).

Basically, Old World wines are made in Europe and are named for the place the wine is made (think Bourdeaux). They tend to be more earthy and minerally. New World wines are made anywhere else, and tend to be named based on which grape varietal is primary in their blend (think Cabernet Sauvignon). These tend to be more fruity and sweet.

Decanting refers to letting the wine breathe and be exposed to air. Exposing to air softens the tannins, which tend to be stronger in red wines, and cause your mouth to dry out like Spongebob when he's washed up on land. So, if you let the wine sit in a decanter for a bit, the wine can become more pleasant to drink. We bought this particular decanter from Amazon, which you can buy through our affiliate link on Amazon here (clicking this link helps Wine Sweet Wine keep buying wine to review). We love it, and it comes with a little cleaning brush and wooden stopper.

For red wine, I use these. FIrst of all, they're freakin sexy. Second of all, they have the biggest globes to really allow the wine to aerate. And they're dishwasher safe. WOOT! For white wine, I use these. They have a tapered to allow the scents to better reach your nose while preventing too much air exposure to the wine. These are also dishwasher safe.