I am far from alone on this prediction and I can’t blame it on wineries but only on the natural addiction to sweet stuff that the American palate has. I love dessert, ice cream, chocolate, honey, maple syrup, candy bars. I love dessert wines too. Many experts have the same prediction as me,that the growing trend to not just like dessert or sweet stuff but with wines especially out of California being produced in an overripe syrupy style, in the near future, restaurants may only offer wine for dessert. The Residual Sugar per liter gets higher and higher with each vintage and on purpose to cater to our taste for sweet. Bourbon Barrels, Rum Barrels 14 Grams per liter of Residual Sugar in a Pinot Noir is getting out of hand. Countries wanting to export wine to us are now also making wines that will cater to Americans. Overripe, Viscous, Jam Bombs. I sure hope we can separate the two in the future of wines for dessert and wines for drinking with a meal or by itself or else our palates and our addiction might destroy the wine industry in all Countries we do business with.
Grape-fully yours, Larry
Larry The Wine Guy 
Hi Larry,
I couldn’t agree more with this blog post. All of my go to, affordable, every day wines ($12-30 California Cabs) we’re tasting sweeter and sweeter. The 2004’s-2014’s were good, but the 2015’s were departing from the taste I was seeking. So I extended my price range up to $70 (Caymus, Napa Quilt, Freemark Abbey, and the like) and didn’t notice any difference. I then started sampling wines from Washington state, Arizona, Texas, and Australia. These were excellent representations of Cabs and other dry red varietals. But many of the 2015 vintages from Texas and Washington state, began to resemble the jammy fruit bombs of California. Several of the 2016’s and 2017’s were so rich, I no longer cared to drink them. Just last week, I was excited to see a Molly Dooker Cab on the list at a “wine themed” restaurant. After all, it had been getting great reviews. It was a huge disappointment. It tasted just like many of the California Cabs that I’ve been avoiding. This is frustrating for me, as I reside in a small, rural town in the Texas Panhandle, and have limited access to decent wine; and furthermore, shipping laws in Texas are generally not helpful.
I hope for this residual sugar trend, to be just that, a passing trend; but I’m almost certain, that Americas insatiable taste for sugar, is here to stay.
Many thanks for your words,
Jason Wheeler.
Great comments Jason. Mollydooker wines were always highly rated and one of the largest offenders of sugar and high alcohol. I can’t even drink one glass of any of their wines. Caymus and Quilt same winemaker Joe Wagner. His sugar wines are not going away. South American wines to please the American Palate are also going in the Sugary direction. This is not a trend. This is going to get worse and worse. Wineries see the increase in sales the more residual sugar they leave in the bottle and harvest on purpose over ripe grapes. Hence the reason for the title of this entry. If wine keeps going in this direction it might all be only served as dessert wine. Let’s hope not. Italy France and Spain still a safe bet and most of Washington State but some Washington wines also going in the sweet direction. Thanks for following the blog