If you are trying to control your weight, mince pies can be a risky choice. However, your wine selection could be a greater danger than your intake of sugar or calorie.
The label may not contain nutritional information, so consumers don’t know what is in their wine.
With this in mind, reduced calorie alcohol retailer DrinkWell has conducted independent laboratory research analysing the nutritional content of 24 of the most popular wines available from the supermarket per glass and by the bottle.
According to the results, three glasses of Barefoot Pink Moscato containing 24g of sugar per glass equates to just 1g more than the recommended daily intake of sugar for women.
While sweet rosé wines were the biggest offenders, white wine is a safer bet for avoiding sugar.
Research also revealed discrepancies in the reported calorie contents of some wines and the information on manufacturer’s websites.
Sugar is a carbohydrate and wine, if made in a clean way, without any additives, should contain no carbohydrate content aside from residual sugar.
You should not add any additional carbohydrate. A clean glass of wine with 0.5g sugar should contain no additional carbohydrates.
It means that only residual sugar should contain calories, and not the wine itself.
Lindemans Bin 40 Merlot contained 110 calories per glass and 660 per bottle, as well as 1.125g of sugar per glass and 6.75g per bottle
But the research found that additives used in wine making can increase the carbohydrated and therefore the calorie content by up to 25 per cent.
Tom Bell, founder and CEO of drinkwelluk.com said that, until now, most people working in the industry didn’t consider the alcohol content in wine in calculating their calories. “Reserved sugar” may be considered at a push.
Our research shows that old-fashioned methods have become outdated and incorrect when it comes to the amount of additives used in mass-produced wines. It’s time for these manufacturers to tell consumers what’s in the wine.’
Several of the brands contained more than the recommended daily intake of sugar in a bottle, which is 25g for women and 38g for men.
The brand of rosé tested with the highest sugar content was Barefoot Pink Moscato, with almost 50g per bottle – twice the recommended amount for women and the equivalent of four tablespoons of table sugar.
The brand contains 101 calories and 8.25g of sugar per small glass, while Gallo Family Summer Rose followed closely behind it with more than 7g per glass and nearly 43g per bottle.
When it came to white wine sugar content was significantly lower, with Gallo Family Vineyards Chardonnay White Wine at the top of the list with 1.5g pf sugar per glass and 9g per bottle.
Gallo Family Summer Rose Gallo Family Vineyards (left) has 7.125g per glass while Chardonnay White Wine contains 1.125g per glass (right)
Both brands of wine contained less calories than their rosé counterparts, but nearly contained a quarter of a woman’s daily intake per day.
If you’re looking to reduce your sugar intake, Jacobs Creek Classic Pinot Grigio White Wine could be the choice for you, with 91 calories per small glass and less than one gram of sugar.
The red wine with the most sugar was Yellow Tail Jammy Red Roo, which contained 28.5g per bottle, which is double the amount found in a family sized bar of chocolate.
Per glass the wine contains 4.75g of sugar, while polishing off an entire bottle of the means you’d be consuming a whopping 684 calories.