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A standard glass of wine has about as many calories as a chocolate biscuit and a half. A bottle has about as many as a burger and chips. Neither fact should stop you enjoying a glass, but knowing the number helps, and most people guess it wrong, usually on the low side.
This calculator works it out properly. Pick a wine style and a pour size, or type the alcohol and sugar figures from the label, and it gives you calories, kilojoules, Australian standard drinks and a few honest comparisons. It also handles alcohol-free wine correctly, which most calorie calculators do not.
Wine Calorie Calculator
Pick a style and a pour, or type your own numbers from the label. Results update as you go.
Wine style How much are you pouring?Your pour (150 ml)
Whole bottle (750 ml)
Cheeseburger check: your pour is a third of a cheeseburger. The whole bottle is two. (A standard cheeseburger is about 300 kcal.)
Alcohol-free wine still has calories. With almost no alcohol, nearly all of them come from the sugar left in the wine, so check the label: sugar can range from 10 to 60 grams per litre.
How we work it out: alcohol at 7 kcal per gram, sugar at 4 kcal per gram, plus a small allowance for glycerol and acids. Walking and jogging use standard MET values for a 70 kg person. Everything here is an estimate, not medical advice.
Table of Contents
How Many Calories Are in a Glass of Wine?
Here are typical figures for a 150 ml glass, which is the standard restaurant pour in Australia, and for a full 750 ml bottle. Dessert and fortified wines use a 60 ml serve because nobody pours a tumbler of Tawny, or at least nobody admits to it. All figures come from the same formula the calculator uses.
| Wine style | Typical ABV | Per serve | Per 750 ml bottle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry red (Shiraz, Cabernet) | 13.5% | 122 kcal / 511 kJ (150 ml) | 610 kcal / 2,553 kJ |
| Dry white (Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay) | 12.5% | 114 kcal / 478 kJ (150 ml) | 572 kcal / 2,392 kJ |
| Dry rosé | 12.5% | 116 kcal / 483 kJ (150 ml) | 578 kcal / 2,417 kJ |
| Sparkling brut | 12% | 114 kcal / 476 kJ (150 ml) | 569 kcal / 2,381 kJ |
| Prosecco | 11% | 109 kcal / 457 kJ (150 ml) | 546 kcal / 2,283 kJ |
| Off-dry Riesling | 11% | 112 kcal / 469 kJ (150 ml) | 561 kcal / 2,346 kJ |
| Moscato | 6.5% | 123 kcal / 514 kJ (150 ml) | 614 kcal / 2,570 kJ |
| Dessert wine | 14% | 79 kcal / 330 kJ (60 ml) | 985 kcal / 4,121 kJ |
| Fortified (Tawny, Muscat) | 18% | 90 kcal / 375 kJ (60 ml) | 1,121 kcal / 4,689 kJ |
| Alcohol-free wine | 0.3% | 35 kcal / 148 kJ (150 ml) | 177 kcal / 742 kJ |
Two things jump out. First, red and white are nearly identical; the small gap is alcohol, not colour. Second, Moscato at 6.5% alcohol has as many calories as a full-strength Shiraz, because what it loses in alcohol it makes up in sugar. Low alcohol does not mean low calorie unless the wine is also dry.
Where the Calories Come From
Wine has three sources of energy, and they are not equal. Alcohol is the big one at 7 calories per gram, nearly as dense as fat. Sugar is next at 4 calories per gram, and it only matters in sweeter styles. Everything else, the glycerol, acids and flavour compounds that give wine its texture, adds a small amount, roughly 9 calories per 150 ml glass whatever the style.
So in a dry red, about 90 percent of the calories are alcohol. In a Moscato, alcohol and sugar split the bill almost evenly. In an alcohol-free wine, nearly all of it is sugar, which is why the label matters so much.
How the Calculator Works
We use the standard method, the same one behind nutrition labels. Multiply the volume in millilitres by the alcohol percentage and by 0.789 (the density of ethanol) to get grams of alcohol, then multiply by 7. Add the sugar in the wine at 4 calories per gram. Add a small allowance of 0.06 calories per millilitre for glycerol and acids. Kilojoules are calories times 4.184.
Standard drinks use the Australian definition of 10 grams of pure alcohol. The exercise figures use MET values, a standard way of estimating how fast people burn energy: brisk walking at 4.3 METs and jogging at 8.3 METs, scaled to your body weight. A cheeseburger is counted as 300 calories because it is funny and roughly true.
If you used our old calculator, you may notice the numbers have gone up a little. The old one counted alcohol only, so it underestimated every wine by 10 to 15 percent, missed sweet wines by half, and told you alcohol-free wine had zero calories. It does not, so we fixed it.
Alcohol-Free Wine Is Not Calorie-Free
Alcohol-free wine, which in Australia means 0.5% ABV or less, has had its alcohol removed, and with it most of its calories. What is left is mostly water, flavour and residual sugar. A dry-style alcohol-free wine might carry 10 to 20 grams of sugar per litre and land around 20 calories per 150 ml. A sweeter sparkling or Moscato style can carry 40 to 60 grams and reach 40 or more.
That is still a fraction of a normal glass, usually a quarter to a third, so it is a very good swap if calories are the goal. Just read the label: alcohol-free wines are one of the few wines that print their kilojoules, so you can check the calculator against the bottle. Our guide to the best non-alcoholic wines in Australia covers the ones that actually taste like wine.
How to Drink Fewer Calories Without Drinking Less Fun
- Pick lower alcohol. Every percentage point of ABV in a 150 ml glass is about 8 calories, so a 11.5% Riesling beats a 15% Shiraz by nearly 30 calories a glass before you even think about sugar.
- Pick dry. “Brut”, “dry” and “secco” on the label mean little sugar. “Dolce”, “doux”, “moscato” and “late harvest” mean plenty.
- Mind the pour. Restaurants pour 150 ml. Home pours are often 200 to 250 ml, which turns a 120-calorie glass into 200 without anyone noticing.
- Make a spritz. Half wine, half soda water and a slice of lemon halves the calories and lasts twice as long. Our red wine with soda water guide has the recipe.
- Go alcohol-free for one of the glasses. Alternating a real glass with an alcohol-free one cuts the night’s total by about a third and the next morning by about a half.
Lower-Calorie Bottles We Would Actually Drink
Stock-checked at our partner shop the day we published. Alcohol-free wines carry a fraction of the calories of full-strength ones; check the kilojoule panel on each label for the exact figure.
Wolf Blass Zero Sparkling Cuvée
The easiest swap on this page: a dry alcohol-free sparkling for a fraction of the calories of a glass of Champagne-style fizz.
- Alcohol removed, so most of the calories go with it
- Dry sparkling style, which keeps the sugar down too
- Kilojoules printed on the label, so you can check our maths
- Under thirteen dollars
- Alcohol-free sparkling is lighter on the palate than the real thing
Edenvale Pink Moscato
If Moscato is your thing, this is the version that will not undo your week. Read the label for the kilojoules; they are printed right there.
- Alcohol-free Moscato from Australia's best-known no-alcohol brand
- Far fewer calories than a real Moscato, which is one of the highest-calorie wines
- Sweet, pink and party-friendly
- Around ten dollars
- Sweeter style, so more sugar and more calories than a dry alcohol-free wine
Brown Brothers Prosecco
For a real glass of wine with fewer calories than most, a lower-alcohol Prosecco is the honest choice. Read our Glera guide for the grape behind it.
- Real wine at 11% alcohol, so lighter than most reds and whites
- Bubbles make a 150 ml glass feel like more
- King Valley Prosecco from a family winery since 1889
- Around twenty dollars
- Off-dry, so a touch of sugar; still about 110 calories a glass
Frequently Asked Questions
How many calories are in a bottle of red wine?
About 600 to 650 calories, or 2,500 to 2,700 kilojoules, for a 750 ml bottle at 13 to 14% alcohol. That is roughly the same as a burger and a small chips.
Is white wine lower in calories than red?
Only slightly, and only because whites are often a little lower in alcohol. A 12.5% white and a 12.5% red have almost identical calories. Sweetness matters far more than colour.
Does alcohol-free wine have calories?
Yes. Removing the alcohol removes most of the calories, but the residual sugar stays. Expect 15 to 45 calories per 150 ml glass depending on how sweet the style is, compared with 110 to 125 for a normal glass. The label will tell you exactly.
How many calories are in one standard drink of wine?
An Australian standard drink is 10 grams of alcohol, which is about 70 calories from the alcohol alone, plus a little from sugar and extract. In a 13% wine, one standard drink is only about 100 ml.
What is the difference between calories and kilojoules?
Same thing, different units. One calorie (kcal) is 4.184 kilojoules. Australian nutrition labels use kilojoules, most diet apps use calories, and our calculator shows both.
This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It keeps the wine flowing and the reviews honest.
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