Sugar is essential to a balanced wine, even ‘dry’ ones. Here’s what you need to know.

Grape concentrate remains a common ingredient in industrial wine, which is made inexpensively in large quantities to fill shelves in supermarkets and convenience stores, especially in the popular “red blends” category. (Another pro tip: For a real red blend, look to Bordeaux.) Adding concentrate can mask shortcuts taken in the vineyard, making consistent wine from inferior grapes. You may hear wine geeks mention Mega Purple, a popular concentrate made from ruby cabernet, a workhorse grape known more for color than flavor. If your inexpensive red is intensely purple and tastes thick and sweet, that might be Mega Purple. We don’t really know, however, because wineries are not required to tell us what concentrates or other additives they use in their wines. Made from grapes, grape concentrates are a relatively benign additive, but if you taste enough wines, you can identify ones that are manipulated or enhanced with them.