Wine Color - A Rainbow of Flavours
It’s a mild and calm spring evening while you are lounging with a few friends at your favourite wine bar. Though engaged in conversation, you cannot help but notice the last rays of sunset hitting your glass of Cabernet and reflecting on the table in a triumph of crimson, sparkly hues.
Have you ever wondered what gives a wine its specific wine color? Sommeliers and experts know that wine color is more than a simple visual characteristic. It can be a fundamental indicator of a wine’s age, flavour, profile and region of origin.
Today, we will explore the main wine colors and the science behind their distinctive shades.
These colours can often carry special meanings in major wine-making countries, owing to their long history of traditions and legends. We learn this together daily: a journey within wine culture often goes beyond wine itself.
Red Wine Color - Passion and Intensity
There’s truly no doubt about it, red is the quintessential wine color. Most people will paint a glass of red wine in their minds when asked to imagine anything regarding the beverage.
Collective bias or rightful supremacy aside, red will be our starting colour today, paving the road for others to follow.
We must begin by saying that grape juice (“must”, as it is known in the industry) is mostly clear and pale in origin, whether extracted from red or white grapes. What gives wines their most distinctive colours is the grape skin. This seemingly innocent part of the grape plays a rather fundamental role throughout wine-making.
Early on it protects the grapes from the sun and other external agents, ensuring its survival in good health until the harvest period.
Later on, maceration is where the magic happens. This fundamental step transfers tannins, colour and many other elements from the grape skins to the must. This is where the typical wine red colour comes to life, in all its countless hues and regional variations. Anthocyanins, soluble pigments in grape skins, are the main culprits of this iconic crimson colouring. They’re to thank you for your favourite Cabernet colour.
It’s a Red World 🍷
The significance of the color red in many countries around the world should not be underestimated.
In most of the Western World, red is strongly associated with passion and love. It is considered an intense color, owing to its association with fire and energy. However it is often also featured as a sign of danger, partly due to its resemblance with the equally coloured blood. In China, red is one of the prime lucky colors and it is prominently featured during the Chinese New Year. In Hinduism, on the other hand, red is often worn by brides as a symbol of purity and fertility. Bordeaux is one of the most iconic red hues and it owes its name to the famous wine produced in the homonymous French city.
Our Red Wine Recommendations:
White Wine Color - Timeless Elegance
As we learned earlier with wine colors, white wine is obtained through the must fermentation occurring without contact with the grape skin. This means that not all white wines are produced with white grapes. Such is the case for the “Blanc de Noirs” wines, a type of Champagne obtained exclusively from the juice of dark grapes, Pinot Noir chiefly among them.
Remaining on the theme of Champagne, “Blanc de Blancs” on the other hand refers to Champagne obtained exclusively from the fermentation of white grapes: Chardonnay, for example, is a prince among them in the Champagne region.
White wine color can vary sensibly: from a light straw-yellow to the intense yellow-gold of more mature and structured white wines.
White wines tend to be on the dry side of the spectrum, however of special note are sweet white wines, produced through an early interruption of the fermentation process which allows the wine to maintain good sugar levels. This type of procedure is called fortification.
Tell Me White 🥂
White is one of the most interesting wine colors and colors in general, thanks to its wildly varied significance among different cultures of the world. In the old and new world, white represents purity and chastity. Often contributing with a connection to the divine. In the East, on the other hand, such as in China and Japan, white is associated with mourning and funerals, fulfilling the role normally invested in the color Black by the western world. Among wine colors, white wine is appreciated for its generally light and crisp structure, commonly employed in cooking as well.
Did you know?
White wine has fewer calories than red wine, it's less alcoholic and tends to grow darker as it ages.
Our White Wine Recommendations:
Rosé Wine Color - Gently Refined
Rosé wines, obtained from red grape varietals, retain their characteristic wine color thanks to the amount of time grape skins are left to ferment together with the must, during the maceration process. This amount of time is considerably less than the period generally involved in red wine production. Thanks to this reduced exposure to grape skins and its inherent anthocyanins, Rosé results in a much lighter shade, a bright pink or pale red hue.
As is the case with white and red wine color, fermentation is not exclusively the only factor in play. Grape varietals, climates and soils are all fundamental agents contributing to the final result. Grenache grapes, for example, generally produce bright pink wine colors, whereas rosé wines obtained with Pinot Noir tend to be more pale and delicate in structure and shading.
Rosé wines are widely associated with spring, summer and warmer seasons. They complement any outdoor activity perfectly thanks to their innate freshness and lower alcoholic value, especially when served chilled.
A Pink Perspective 🌸
It's hard not to remain enthralled by the bright and delicate swirls of a good Rosé wine color.
While it is unclear when the first rosé label was produced, historically speaking it is quite likely that the first wine ever produced might have looked very similar to rosé wines from nowadays, making this wine color all the more intriguing and significant.
Pink has always been a symbol of femininity and womanhood. In Japan it's traditionally one of the national colors, thanks to its association with the beautiful Cherry tree, one of the symbols of Japan. In some Native American cultures, pink is associated with unconditional love and nurturing, and is sometimes used in healing ceremonies.
Among wine colors, the rosé one seems to be the most gentle expression of wine-making love.
Green Wine Color - Vinho Verde
“Green wine” or “Vinho Verde” originates from the northern part of Portugal, in the province of Minho. Vinho Verde does not identify a specific grape variety, but refers to a DOC indicating a specific preparation method.
The color of the wine is not actually green, as the translation of the Portuguese name indicates it as a “young wine”, owing to the fact that it should be bottled and released only three to six months after the harvest.
Traditionally Vinho Verde has been produced mostly locally, by many small producers but in more recent years more established wine-makers have been experimenting with oak aging and different methods, in order to obtain a slightly different final product.
Vinho Verde is generally white, but red and rosé variants can be found on the market.
The consensus is that Vinho Verde should be drank young, easily and carefree, so much that many producers don’t bother sticking vintage labels on their bottle.
What better wine to represent the joyful and welcoming nature of the northern Portuguese people?
Green Power 💚
Just like “Vinho Verde”, green is culturally a very dynamic colour. In many culture it represent young and carefree energy, the characteristics of an early life well spent. Ireland holds green as an almost sacred color, in remembrance of the emerald hue of its island. In most European countries it is the color of agriculture and cultivation, being tied so deeply with the earth and with wine-making itself.
A glass of Vinho Verde could be the perfect way to celebrate spring and renewal with friends and loved ones.
Our Vinho Verde Recommendation:
Black Wine Color - Past and Present
“Black wines” are not black by definition. This term has been historically used to describe very dark red wines, with such deep hues in their wine colors that they almost bordered on black. Recently the term has been introduced again to describe certain varieties, the dark ruby red Saperavi from Georgia among them, which fit the category.
“Black wines” however, have been in circulation since the earliest accounts of wine-making. For example, Chian Wine, from Greece, had been credited as the world’s first labelled red wine. It was however known as “black wine” to the Greeks.
Nowadays as we mentioned, Saperavi is one of the few wines deserving the “black wine” description, due to its characteristic intense wine red color, unlike any other.
Saperavi is produced through a very ancient and specific method of fermentation, involving large clay vessels called “Qvevri” (ქვევრი) which are buried underground, allowing for the intense process of fermentation realizing the deeply tinted red wine color, bordering on black and purple.
Back to Black ★
Many western cultures associate black with mourning and loss, however, this color plays a major role in defining elegance and sophistication as well. Generally speaking it is the elective color for important and formal events of any kinds, and it can typically be paired with anything.
In many African cultures, black is associated with fertility and life, taking on a very different and interesting perspective from the role it usually embodies in the West.
In that sense, black wine, being a door between past and present and representing elegance and formality, shows all the qualities to be a wine for celebration and remembrance.
