What is their color due to?

Have you ever thought about the origin of the color of a red, white and rosé wine?

A red wine is obtained by vinifying the grapes pressed with the skins to extract, in addition to other substances, also the color present in the skin itself.

Simple, a red wine is made from red grapes, but a white wine or rosé wine?

A white wine is obtained by removing the skins and vinifying the juice thus obtained.

During my lessons I always say to do this exercise:

– Take 1 white grape and 1 red grape; easy to understand what kind of wine can be obtained from the color of the skins.

– Now remove the peel of both and you will notice that they are both white. Here is explained why I can get a white wine from red berried grapes:

– Just remove the skins during crushing. And the rosé?

The procedure normally used is to start vinifying the red berried grapes together with the skins, then as for a red wine, to extract the desired amount of color and then remove them and move on to a vinification as for a white wine. Some producers combine red grapes with white ones to obtain a rosé. So we always talk about grapes, never about a union of wine.

The only exception where the union of wine to obtain a rosé is allowed is the sparkling process, the so-called assembly of the Cuvée.

What is missing to understand?

The so-called Orange Wine, orange wines. How do I get a wine with this color? The white grapes are simply vinified in contact with the skins, as for red wine. The color of a wine provides a lot of tasting information, from its state of health, to its aging and its structure.

Speaker and Sommelier – Fisar Milano Duomo

Devid Ghisellini