How Many Carbs in Wine? A USDA Chart by Type

A 5-ounce glass of red or white table wine has about 3 to 4 grams of carbohydrates, according to USDA FoodData Central, the US government’s food composition database. USDA’s Riesling and Muscat entries run higher, and its sweet dessert wine entry reaches about 20 grams at the same pour. Below is the chart by type, how USDA gets its numbers and how to estimate a bottle that isn’t on the list.

Note: This page gives nutrition figures only. It isn’t diet or health advice, and we don’t recommend any wine for any eating plan. If you have questions about carbohydrates, alcohol and your health, ask your doctor or a registered dietitian.

Carbs in wine by type, per 5 fl oz

The figures below are USDA’s carbohydrate values per 100 grams, multiplied by its own portion weight for 5 fluid ounces, which ranges from 147 to 154 grams depending on the entry. Where USDA lists only a weight per fluid ounce, we multiplied that by five. We rounded to one decimal. All names are USDA’s entries, so you can search for them on FoodData Central.

Wine (USDA entry)	Weight of 5 fl oz	Carbs in 5 fl oz
Light wine	148 g	1.7 g
Pinot Blanc	147 g	2.9 g
Sauvignon Blanc	147 g	3.0 g
Pinot Gris (Grigio)	147 g	3.0 g
Chardonnay	147 g	3.2 g
Pinot Noir	147 g	3.4 g
Sparkling wine	150 g	3.5 g
Red table wine	147 g	3.8 g
White table wine	147 g	3.8 g
Cabernet Sauvignon	147 g	3.8 g
Table wine, all	148 g	4.0 g
Riesling	148 g	5.5 g
Rosé	151.5 g	5.8 g
Muscat	150 g	7.8 g
Dry dessert wine	147.5 g	17.3 g
Sweet dessert wine	147.5 g	20.2 g
Late-harvest white	154 g	20.6 g

Every number is an average for a category, not a measurement of the bottle you’re holding. In our view, the differences of a few tenths of a gram between dry wines aren’t worth choosing a bottle over.

Carbs in dessert and fortified wine

Sweet and fortified wines are rarely poured at 5 ounces, so the chart above overstates a typical glass. USDA’s own serving for its dessert wine entries is a 3.5-ounce glass (103 grams):

Wine (USDA entry)	Serving	Carbs
Dry dessert wine	3.5 fl oz	12.1 g
Sweet dessert wine	3.5 fl oz	14.1 g

USDA’s dessert wine entries have about 15.3 grams of alcohol per 100 grams, and the category is a broad one. Our guide to fortified wine explains styles such as Port and Sherry, and how they get their strength. We’d check a producer’s tech sheet for a figure on any specific bottle, because sweetness varies widely within these styles.

Carbs per bottle

USDA lists weights per fluid ounce, and a 750 ml bottle holds 25.36 fluid ounces. These are our calculations:

Wine	Carbs per 750 ml bottle (approx.)
Sparkling wine	17.6 g
White table wine	19.4 g
Red table wine	19.5 g
Rosé	29.2 g

Our guide to how many ounces are in a bottle of wine has the volume of other sizes, so you can scale these up or down.

Why carbs and sugar aren’t the same number

You’ll notice that USDA’s carbohydrate figure is usually higher than its sugar figure. In its red wine entry, 5 ounces has about 3.8 grams of carbohydrate but only about 0.9 grams of sugar.

The reason is partly how the number is made. USDA’s FAQ explains that “carbohydrate by difference” is what remains after subtracting the percentages of water, protein, fat, ash and alcohol (when present) from 100. So it’s a calculated remainder, which takes in everything else in the wine, not only sugar. We’d treat it as an estimate rather than a precise count.

Alcohol isn’t counted in that figure at all, because USDA subtracts it first. That is why a wine’s carbohydrate number says little about its calories: For the sugar side of the story, see does wine have sugar.

How to estimate carbs in any bottle

Regular wine labels rarely list carbohydrates, so a little math helps. Wine Folly’s rule of thumb is that 10 grams per liter of residual sugar (RS, the grape sugar left after fermentation) comes to about 1.8 grams of carbohydrate in a 5-ounce (150 ml) glass. You can scale that up or down from a producer’s tech sheet. These are our calculations from that rule:

Residual sugar on the tech sheet	Approx. carbs per 5 oz from Wine Folly’s rule
4 g/L	0.7 g
10 g/L	1.8 g
20 g/L	3.6 g
50 g/L	9 g

Treat this as a guide to how residual sugar adds up rather than a total, and don’t expect it to match USDA’s figures exactly, since the two come from different methods. For a dry wine, we think USDA’s 3 to 4 grams is the more practical number to use. The sweetness words on the label can also narrow it down: our guide to low sugar wine explains terms such as Brut Nature, Extra Dry and trocken.

Serving size changes everything

All of these figures scale with the pour. At USDA’s value for red table wine, an 8-ounce pour has about 6.1 grams of carbohydrate instead of 3.8 (our calculation, 8/5 of the 5-ounce figure). Our guide to how many ounces are in a glass of wine compares restaurant, tasting and dessert pours. In our view, measuring one pour at home is the quickest way to make these numbers meaningful.

Will labels list carbs?

Possibly. In January 2025, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), which regulates wine labels, proposed requiring an “Alcohol Facts” statement that would show alcohol content, calories, carbohydrates, fat and protein per serving, with sugars as an option. It was a proposal in that notice, so we’d keep checking the label and the producer’s website. Until labels carry the information, USDA’s averages are a reasonable starting point.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age (21 in the US). Please drink responsibly.