WineGuessrPlay →Types of wine
Wine falls into six broad styles. Red, white and rosé are still wines that differ mainly in how long the juice stays in contact with the grape skins. Sparkling wines hold carbon dioxide, usually from a second fermentation, sweet wines keep sugar from very ripe, dried, frozen or noble-rotted grapes, and fortified wines get extra alcohol from added grape spirit. How wine is made.
- Red wine308 winesRed wine is wine made from dark-skinned grapes fermented together with their skins. The juice of most red grapes is greenish-white, so the colour comes from anthocyanin pigments in the skins, extracted during fermentation and maceration along with the tannins that give red wine its structure.
- White wine195 winesWhite wine is wine fermented without prolonged contact between the juice and the grape skins, which keeps it pale. The grapes are pressed soon after harvest and only the juice is fermented, so white wine can even be made from red grapes, a style called blanc de noirs.
- Sparkling wine29 winesSparkling wine is wine with enough dissolved carbon dioxide to be fizzy, usually from a second fermentation. Champagne and Cava use the traditional method, refermenting in the bottle, while Prosecco and most Sekt use the faster tank (Charmat) method. Fully sparkling wine holds 5 to 6 atmospheres of pressure.
- Sweet wine43 winesSweet wine is wine with noticeable residual sugar. It is made by concentrating the sugar in the grapes through noble rot, late harvesting, freezing or drying, or by stopping fermentation early, for example by adding spirit. Famous examples include Sauternes, Tokaji Aszú, Trockenbeerenauslese and ice wine.
- Fortified wine11 winesFortified wine is wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy or neutral grape spirit, has been added, typically bringing it to about 20% alcohol. Adding the spirit during fermentation keeps natural grape sugar, as in Port; adding it after fermentation gives dry styles such as fino Sherry.
- Rosé wine2 winesRosé wine is pink wine usually made by leaving the skins of dark grapes in contact with the juice for a short time, typically two to twenty hours, before fermenting it like a white wine. France is the largest supplier, led by Provence and the all-rosé Tavel appellation.