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Sweet red wines are often sought after as either an introduction to wine or as a “transitionary wine” from white to red wines. Though red wines that are firmly planted in the sweet category are considerably harder to find than sweet white wines, they are available. In the wine world, sweet is the opposite of dry. The majority of the world’s red wines are made in a dry-style, meaning that they have lower levels of residual sugar (RS) and often a higher tannin content which adds considerably to the dry perception.
When it comes to sweet wines in general, it is easy to confuse sweet with “fruity.” While a wine’s sweetness is perceived by the tastebuds on the tip of the tongue, a wine’s fruitiness is largely an aromatic perception. Keep in mind, you can physically only taste four sensations: sweet, sour, salty and bitter, yet you can smell thousands of scents, so a wine’s fruitiness is the result of the combined efforts of taste and aroma. Tannins will also tame fruit, if a wine is overly tannic it will bind the fruit on the palate and mask aromas and perceptions of fruit.
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