After reading through this guide, you should have a working knowledge of the different types of wine and enough vocabulary to set out and buy your first serious bottle.
Red Wine vs. White Wine: What’s the Difference?
tannins are often described as bitter, causing a dry and puckery feeling in the mouth. Tannins end up in your wine when the vintner allows the skins to sit in the grape juice as it ferments. This is also how wines get their color. Wines that have little or no skin contact end up pink or white, with far fewer tannins. Wines that ferment with the skins for a longer period end up red, with high tannin content. As you’d imagine, red grape skins have more tannins than white grape skins. Tannins provides the backbone of red wine, which is why you might describe a red wine as “firm” or “leathery” or just plain “bitter.” Tannins also give red wine texture, making it feel “smooth” and “soft” or “rough”
and “chewy.” In general, the darker the wine, the more tannins and the “bolder” the taste. White wine has tannins, but not enough to make it the star of the show. Instead, white wines are backboned by acidity. That’s why you might say a wine is “crisp” or “tart.” Or, if there isn’t enough acidity, you might call a white wine “flabby” or “flat.” Rosé, or blush wine, is pink in color. It gets that way because it is allowed to stay in contact with the red grape skins for a relatively short time compared to red wine. On the spectrum between red and white, rosé is much closer to the light side, with relatively low tannins.
Okay, you probably don’t need any help recognizing a white wine versus a red wine. They look different and they certainly taste different as well. But since we’re in this to find you a bottle of wine that you’re going to enjoy, it’s worth your while to try and understand why they look and taste so different. The culprit in both cases: the skins, and a little something they bring to the party called tannins. Remember the word tannins and what it means, because wine people talk about tannins a lot. Tannins are a naturally occurring substance in grapes and other fruits and plants (like tea, for example). The taste of
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