Depending on the color of the wine, we generally divide the wine into 3 categories, namely: red wine, white wine and rosé wine. However, the color of the wine will vary from grape variety, region and winemaking method to different, and even for the same category of wine, the color will vary slightly or even significantly. So in fact, there are far more colors in wine than these 3 types.
Although we can't just rely on the color of the wine to determine the color, vintage, and variety of the wine, we can still have a rough guess about the wine at a macro level, especially in blind tasting, and a simple glance can exclude a lot of interference information. The following small editor will give you a list of the colors that often appear in wine, and the reasons for these colors.
Common wine colours
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After reading these, next time you drink wine, don't forget to describe the color of the wine! Let's talk about why wines have different colors.
Why do wines come in different colors?
(1) Related to grape varieties
Different grape varieties produce very different wine colours. Grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec and others are usually particularly dark in color, with a bluish-purple tinge; Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo are lighter in color, like a light ruby red. Different grape varieties produce different tannins, with the exception of nebjoro, with the exception of nebioro.
(2) It is related to the ripeness of the grapes
Usually the higher the ripeness of the grapes, the higher the sugar content, the darker the color of the grape skin, especially the grapes subjected to long-term sunshine, the color of the skin is darker, and the wine produced will be particularly dark in addition to the high alcohol content.
(3) Related to the production process
In addition to the rare red-skinned red-meat grape varieties, most red grape varieties and white grape varieties have transparent grape flesh, so red grape varieties can also make white wines. The color of red wine mainly comes from the impregnation process during brewing, which is actually to immerse the peel or even the grape stem in the grape juice during brewing in order to extract the pigments and tannins in the peel.
Rosé wine is a grape juice after the peel is only impregnated in the grape juice for a short time, so that the result is a very light color rosé wine.
During the production and fermentation process, the temperature will also affect the color of the wine, and the general fermentation temperature will increase, and the color of the red wine will become lighter.
(4) It is related to acidity
The color of the wine is affected by the acidity of the wine's liquid, and other variables also affect the color of the wine, such as cocoloration, sulfate content, etc., but in general, the following principles are followed:
(1) The higher the acidity, that is, the smaller the pH, the more stable the pigment, and the darker the color of the wine.
(2) Usually when the pH of the wine is 3.4–3.6, the wine has a dark purple color.
(3) When the acidity is low and the pH is higher than 3.6, the wine has a purple-red color.
(5) It is related to whether it is old or not
As the sulfite content increases, the color of red wines becomes lighter after aging, and many of them change from dark red to dark brown after aging; white wines deepen in color after aging, gradually turning into dark gold and finally becoming tan.
The tannins in red wine will become softer and softer with the aging oxidation process, just like apples will be oxidized for a long time, oxidation also allows tannins to adsorb the pigments in the wine, and the color of the wine with the decreasing red pigment gradually changes from purple to brown and orange, and in old age, only a faint brick red is left.