The world of wine is a rich and colorful one. For a wine competitor, the variety of wines available can be overwhelming. Many of my friends’ understanding of wine is limited to red wine, and they may know little or nothing about other types of wine. As a result, I am often out socializing, especially when it comes to drinking. Because of this lack of knowledge about wine, I become less confident when I see people talking about wine.
Therefore, learning more about wine culture and wine is also a way to improve your quality. With more and more external communication, it is also necessary for me to understand wine as part of the culture of the table.
The classification of wine may be a little more complicated than you think. Today we will discuss it in more detail. According to the World Definition of Wine (OIV, 1996), wine can only be a beverage obtained from crushed or uncrushed fresh grape berries or grape juice by complete or partial alcoholic fermentation, and its alcohol content must not be less than 8.5 degrees. The classification of wines will be based on the following methods.
By color
The color of wine comes from the grape skins. Depending on the color of the wine, we can classify it into red, white and pink wines.
Red wines are produced by fermenting red grapes with their skins. In order to obtain a deeper color and tannins, the wine needs to be macerated in the skin for a longer period of time. There are several ways to macerate the skin. The most primitive method is to step on the skin manually and then press the cap. The most common method is to wet the skin.
The wine is sucked from the bottom and sprayed on the surface of the fermented juice to obtain the color and tannins of the skins. The color of different red wines can be described as: purplish-ruby-ruby-garnet-brick-red-brown
White wines are made from peeled white or red grapes. Therefore, in theory, all grapes can be used to make white wine. In many cases, white wine is easily associated with something bad, so wine consumption has been relatively slow to rise, but the good acidity of white wine is particularly good for eating, so white wine consumption is almost equal to that of red wine in the world. The prices of some of the best white wines are also very impressive and are no worse than those of red wines.
A rosé is a short fermentation of red grapes with skins that is rosé or rose in color, hence the name rosé. While red wines may take up to a week to macerate in the skins, pink wines may take as little as 12 hours to get the correct color. In recent years, pink wines have become quite popular in the international market. Sometimes they are a little sweet, especially for ladies.
Through sugar
After the wine is made, it is classified according to the amount of sugar left in the wine. The most sensitive part of the body to sugar is the tip of the tongue. When the amount of residual sugar in a wine is less than 4G in 1000ml of wine, the tongue does not feel the sweetness. We call wines with this sugar content dry wines. Too much sugar is not good for health, so from a health point of view, it is good to choose dry wines more often.
According to this standard, when the sugar content is 4g-12g, we call it semi-dry wine, and when the sugar content is 12g-45g, we call it semi-sweet wine. Sweet wines are those with a sugar content of 45g or more.
Famous sweet wines, such as ice wine and Katsura, are sold all over the world. The best ice wine and Katsura-boo are great collectors’ items.
According to the vapor content
Still wines
A wine is considered to be still when it has a carbon dioxide content of less than 0.5 bar (bar) at a temperature of 20°C. Most of the wines we often see are classified as still wines.
Sparkling wines
Wines with a carbon dioxide content of more than 3.5 bar (bar) at 20°C are called sparkling wines. Champagne is a well-known sparkling wine. But champagne is a proper term. Not all sparkling wines are called champagne.
The impact of opening Champagne is significant
Fortified Wines
After the wine is made, alcohol is added manually to increase the wine’s precision. This type of wine is called fortified wine. Fortified wines were produced under unique historical conditions. Due to limited freshness at the time, the alcohol content was artificially increased to ensure that the wine would not deteriorate over long distances. Famous fortified wines include Port and Shirley.
Since most of the wines on the market are unfortified, we do not have much contact with fortified wines. There are, of course, companies that specialize in Portuguese and Spanish wines that carry more or less fortified wines. In addition to Spain and Portugal, Louis Grande in southern France and Australia also produces some famous fortified wines.
Brandy
In a broad sense, all fruit wines can be called brandy after distillation. In a narrower sense, brandy sometimes refers to wine brandy, while other brandies begin with the name of the fruit, such as cherry brandy and apple brandy.
Understanding these wine categories is the beginning of wine awareness. I hope you enjoy wine more and more, learn more about it, and improve our taste in life.
