Calories in Your Glass of Wine

Among the flurry of studies telling you the health benefits of wine it still comes down to the fact that it's an alcoholic beverage. You have to decide for yourself how much alcohol is healthy for you to consume. What about the calories?

This glass has more than 100 calories

The calories in wine come from two sources -- alcohol and residual sugar (in wines that aren't completely dry).

A typical glass of wine is five ounces as this is what's usually poured in a restaurant or wine bar. At home your pours might be a bit larger.

Next is to look at the alcohol level. Typically dry wines run from 12% to 15%. For that five ounce pour figure about 100 to 130 calories. Drier sparkling wines are often the lowest and I expect those high-octane Zinfandels to be the highest. A fortified sweet wine, like Port, will have double the calories (though often people don't drink five ounces at a time).

So are sweet wines higher in calories? It depends because alcohol has seven calories per grams while sugar has just four. So something like one of those sweet Rieslings with 10% alcohol aren't any worse than many dry wines.

A 12 ounce can of cola has 150 calories and isn't nearly as much fun as a glass of wine!

As you can see, for one or two glasses of wine there isn't a huge range in dry table wines so just go for what you like.  Because if you're really that picky to choose one wine over another based on calories perhaps you should just skip the wine altogether. Maybe have a rum and diet Coke. :)