The good news if you are counting calories is that wine contains fewer than almost any other alcoholic beverage. The bad news is that the calories offer little in nutritional value. Despite the fact that merlot is a single varietal red wine made from dark grapes, it will not contribute anything to your daily allowance of vitamin C. All red wines tend to be somewhat higher in calories than white wines. The average red merlot contains 147 calories in a 6 oz. serving.
Source
None of merlot’s calories come from fat, but 12 percent of them come from carbohydrates, according to the website FatSecret. Seventy-three percent derive from the alcohol content.
Nature
It isn’t the number of calories in a glass of merlot wine that can sabotage your diet as much as it is the nature of those calories. The calories in wine are harder to burn off, according to the website Professor’s House. They come from the sugar in the grapes and the fermentation process of making wine actually raises its sugar content. The natural sugar found in grapes bears little resemblance to the finished fructose-type product.
Varieties
The exact calorie content can vary slightly between brands of merlot, and to complicate things further, merlot also comes in a white version that is similar to zinfandel. A 6 oz. glass of Beringer’s white merlot contains six less calories than its red counterpart, according to the website MyFitnessPal.
Considerations
While knowing that a beverage choice contains only 142 to 147 calories per serving might sound encouraging, Professor's House notes that wine lovers do not usually have one glass of wine with dinner and it is not uncommon for some to have as many as five glasses. If you have five 6 oz. glasses of merlot, you will have consumed 735 calories, nearly half of your daily quota on a 1,500 calorie-a-day diet. It is also difficult to know exactly how many ounces you are pouring into your wine glass because they come in so many varying sizes these days. If you pour an 8 oz. serving into an over-sized wine glass, you will be consuming 197 calories, not 147. If you have three similar-sized servings, you will have drank 590 calories, or more than a third of your daily quota on a 1,500 calorie-a-day diet.
Advice
Professor’s House advises that if you know you’re going to be drinking on a given night, balance it out by eliminating 100 calories or so per meal in the days leading up to it. You’ll essentially be making room for the extra wine calories. It isn’t wise, however, to skip eating on the occasion when you’re enjoying your wine. Not only will the alcohol go to your head faster on an empty stomach, but it lowers your blood glucose levels. This will tell your brain that you’re hungry and you need to eat. If you are hungry to start with, the influence of the wine and the glucose might convince you to bag your diet for the night – and your calorie concerns will be far worse than those contained in the merlot.
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