Will you be having the red or white this evening? The question that we are all familiar with and we already have an idea what our response might be, but why? What is the actual difference between the two, spoiler alert, different colors entirely and different flavor, but again why? I think starting with the basics such as this is a great way to delve into the world of wine and begin to have an understanding of wine and maybe why you prefer certain flavors over the other.
We all know that wine comes in predominantly 2 different colors (ehhh not really though, there’s pink, orange, and tawny) and even these two colors come in widely different shades but getting beyond those points why do these types of wines exist and wine are they so popular. By going to any regular grocery store you will find both red and green tables gapes, you can also find dark raisins and golden raisins. The same is true for wine grapes. In the industry we call them either red or white grapes. Red wine grapes ranges from more plum red to super dark blue grapes and white wine grapes range from bright green to golden green. These two predominant grapes have different qualities in them making them distinguishable from another, because of this winemakers throughout history have found that different winemaking techniques produces more desirable characters in the wine itself.
White wines tend to be made more simple in structure, highlighting the flavors of the grape itself other than other components. White grapes are taken into the winery and the grapes are typically thrown into the press whole cluster, meaning the whole grape bunch including the stems and seeds, and then the juice is pressed off the whole cluster. This is juice, and it is the sweetest juice you will ever taste. It is absolutely delicious! The juice is then what ferments and turns into wine! (MAGIC!) Most of these are made, stabilized, stored for less than a year and then bottled. Typically these wines are easy drinking and are made for quick consumption, haha no don’t drink the bottle quickly, merely it was not made for long term storage and should be drunk 1-2 years after it was made. Simple white wines have immense flavor variability such as flowers like honeysuckle and jasmine, to green fruit such as apple and pear, citrus like lemon, stone fruits like peaches, and tropical fruits like guava. Sounds like a good fruit salad!
Red wines have different compounds or phenolic compounds that allow it be made in a different style. Red grapes have a much more robust structure allowing them to incorporate tannins (more on tannins later) and secondary flavor characteristic in the wine. When red grapes are taken in the winery and they are sent through the destemmer and crusher. In this step the stems are removed and the grape berries are crushed causing the skin of the grape to be broken, allowing the juices to free up. At this point in its life it is called grape must and this is what will be allowed to undergo fermentation. See the difference here? The must is fermented on the skins and seeds where the white grape juice fermented on juice only, no solids. This is huge when it comes to winemaking style. What difference do the seeds and skins have? 1. Color! Red wine get its colors from the skin. This is the one and only reason where color in wine comes from and it is extracted by what we call skin contact. By fermenting and soaking on the skins the wine picks up pigments, to get a little scientific, compounds called anthocyanins. 2. Tannins! Tannin will be extracted from both the skin and seeds of the grapes. Tannins are a carbohydrate compound that makes a wine feel dry. It is that thing about wine that make it feel like your gums are sticking to your teeth (think of black tea). Those are tannins and they are highly influential in defining a wine. Red wine flavors are also quite different from whites such as red currant, cranberry, strawberry, red cherry, red plum, black plum, black cherry, blueberry, blackberry, black pepper, and green pepper. Flavors are not limited to these of course but they tend to be the most popular and frequently used when describing wine.
The differences do not stop there. Since the red must or wine has the tannic structure and other robust characteristics it can be made to an even higher degree of complexity with further development. Once it is pressed off the skin, finished fermentation, stabilized, it can then be barreled down and allowed to age. Depending the varietal (ie. the grape type) you can age a wine for 6-24 months (or even longer!) in barrel. A wine barrel is responsible for imparting beautiful flavors to a wine giving it complexity, more tannin, and typically gives the wine the ability to age. Some high quality red wine are able to age for 100 years! Most wine however are not made it that fashion but should still be able to age 5-15 year. Also let me be blunt when I mean high quality wine I am referring to wine being made with love and care, where it is being made by the winemaker who goal is to perfect their art one vintage at a time. Not all wine is like this and it makes me a little sad. We can get into the crazy wine economics later and why it is hard to make wine profitable these day…. But I digress back the wines lol.
As you can see there are quite a few differences making for each type of wine. So which one is better?
For me personally I love both. I may go as far to mention that I usually find more interesting wine to be one of the white varietals, but usually these might have undergone winemaking processes not mentioned above. When someone might argue the point that red wines have more depth or complexity I would say white wines being as delicate as they are can be much more aromatic, expressive. There are also much more aroma and flavor distinctions among whites. But, I do love both, what I choose to drink is mostly due to time of year, whites/rose in spring summer, reds in fall/winters, time of day (bubbles for breakfast please!), and what I am eating it with.
New wine drinkers tend to prefer one type over the other and for simplicity sake it is usually broken down into two groups, sensitive pallets and non sensitive pallets (yes very fancy terminology). Sensitive tasters are, you might have guessed, sensitive to strong and bitter flavors, coffee, strong tea (tannins), very dark chocolate, hoppy beer, dandelions, garlic, and even asparagus (basically a lot of my favorite things!). These pallets tend to enjoy more simple and sweet white wine. Generally these people have a genetic dispositions, ie. they have gene that regulate their taste buds, so they might never “grow” out of the sensitive palate which it totally fine cause there is still tons of wines that they find enjoyable. Nonsensitive tasters, usually start out a little sensitive. Think about it, how old were you until you started drinking coffee and even when you did start drinking coffee I bet you added milk and sugar to it? Am I right or what haha. Point being the palate develops with age. I can remember the first time I went wine tasting as an adult at the age of about 22 and even then I preferred the more developed, full bodied, complex reds. We bought 5 bottles of red that trip lol.
My intention for my lovely readers is to start to understand why they like a certain type of wine. Knowing the basics of to how its made its big step to understand yourself and your taste preferences. It is a great first step into breaking into the industry and realizing that not all wines are made equal and where you are in this wine journey is a perfect place to be. I hope that this is at least illuminating and might spark your interest to try something new!