An old saying among wine marketing people of some American wine consumers goes like this: "Americans talk dry but drink sweet." It's not very nice, but it's not entirely untrue, either.

This means that most American wine consumers, having heard that consuming sweet wine is for wusses, tell their friends, neighbors and anyone else who will listen that they drink only dry wine. But when it comes right down to it, they buy sweeter wine. Or any wine with such insufficient acidity that a true wine lover would gag.

This last line is utterly disrespectful, I realize, but I know a lot of people who speak the argot of wine with the air of an expert, and drink wine on a regular basis, perhaps daily, spending a lot of money on wine (they don't mind paying $25 or even $40 for a bottle, if it has the right pedigree — explanation to follow), yet they really don't know the difference between dry wines and sweet wines.

They are not, in my opinion, real wine lovers.

Real wine lovers do not drink soft or sweet wine; they crave truly dry, crisp wine, both white and red.

To some people, any expensive wine is "better" than any cheapo wine, and any wine that gets a high score from a glossy magazine is a "better" wine than one with a lower score. And to them, a wine gets its pedigree from being both expensive and made by a producer with a glitzy reputation for producing, uh, expensive wine (even if that wine is putatively sweet or lacks acid).

For me, dry wine's first role is to work with food. Sure, there are a few dry wines you could sip by themselves, but one of the reasons humankind developed dry grapes into a liquid that is biblically praised is that it elevates food to a more sublime state than it is alone.

Look at the wine reviews you'll find in any glossy wine magazine. Any review will do. See if it mentions the sort of food that the wines would go with. Chances are it does not. That's because for wine magazines that score by number, the number is the key factor, the wine's producer comes second, and the reviewer's impression of it comes third. Nowhere is there room for speaking of the wine's affinity, or lack thereof, for pairing with a rib eye, bouillabaisse or mutton haunch.

As for descriptions that seem to predominate with the best-scoring wines, we have "oak," "chocolate," "coffee," "molasses" and "butterscotch." And "unctuous" and "rich" and "soft" and "toasty."

Yes, you will find fruit mentioned here and there, but the best wines, in the opinions of these tasters, display characteristics that relate little to the structure of the wine, and almost never do the food recommendations accompany the number.

I like dry wine.

I like wine that has the bracing acidity you find in Muscadet, Vouvray, Sancerre, white Bordeaux, Australian Riesling and German trocken (dry) Rieslings.

Among red wines, I love Chinon, Chianti Classico, Barolo, cool-climate Pinot Noir and Merlot, Spanish Garnacha, and red Bordeaux.

Yes, I know. I left out Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Well, I like a lot of Napa Valley Cabernets, but for the most part, their alcohol levels seem fast approaching the dessert-wine range, and their softness combined with their relative aromatic neutrality makes them a bit difficult to reconcile with most foods.

Many of these wines I'd call flabby. (A tasting recently of the 2005 vintage of Grand Crus de Bordeaux illustrated this most convincingly. And "flabby" is one word that simply does not belong in the same sentence with most Bordeaux, red or white.)

Years ago, I spoke about how bad Napa Cabs went with chocolate. Today it seems that may well be the best pairing choice. But at $100 or even $50 a bottle?

I haven't given up hope for some of the newcomers to wine who think of themselves as real wine lovers but who buy soft, sweet wines. Many may well not be irretrievably lost; they may eventually migrate over to the truly dry wine sector.

For now, however, those of us who love the dry, minerally, austere wines still being made around the world still revel in the fact that they have yet to become widely discovered and thus remain reasonably priced.

Wine of the Week: 2005 Leon Beyer Gewurztraminer, Alsace ($18) — This dry, softer version of the popular white wine of this northern French district has a floral-spiced aroma with hints of peaches and citrus rind. It is round enough to work with Thai food, but also has the acidity to pair with dishes such as chicken sauteed with apple slices and cream or Sole Veronique.

Dan Berger resides in Sonoma County, Calif. Berger publishes a weekly newsletter on wine and can be reached at danberger@VintageExperiences.com. To find out more about Dan Berger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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