Wine Basics
The Five Groups of Wine
Put aside the descriptive language of taste and cultivation because we need to begin with the very beginning: the grape.
Wine grapes are not your grocery store grape. Wine grapes are either black or white, smaller, sweeter, have thicker skins and have seeds. There are over a thousand wine grape varieties used in the making of wines. However, only a 100 of these varieties are used to produce wine of about 75% of the world’s vineyards. Does this help reduce the complexity of wine? Not in the least! But knowing the fruit is a good place to start.
Our first lesson is about the five groups of wine:
Red Wine is made from black grapes.
White Wine is made from white grapes.
Rose Wine is made from black grapes but removing the skin before it stains the wine red.
Sparkling Wine is a style of winemaking involving a secondary fermentation to add bubbles.
Dessert Wine is a style of winemaking involving fortifying wine with spirits.
The classification by vinification refers to how the wines are made and wines are separated into three major categories: table wines, sparkling wines and fortified wines. Tables wines (also called natural wines) are usually consumed with food, and are served as a compliment to a meal. Sparkling wines are mostly consumed at celebrations, and fortified wines are used before or after a meal.
Our next lesson, will discuss the different types of wine by style and taste, beginning with group one: Red Wine.