[Tasting trilogy-"Looking at Beautiful Colors"]

When it comes to the "trilogy" of wine tasting, many people can blurt it out-"seeing color, smelling fragrance and tasting taste". As the first step of this trilogy, the visual feeling brought by "seeing color" may not seem as important as aroma and flavor, but it can provide some valuable information.

1. Where does the color of wine come from?

What we need to know is that the color of wine comes from the contact between grape skin and grape juice during brewing. The longer the contact time, the darker the color of wine. Red wine is made from red grapes. From impregnation to fermentation, the grape juice always keeps in contact with the peel, and the pigment can be fully extracted. In the fermentation process, the staff will also increase the extraction efforts by pumping, punching and returning to the rack.

2. What can the color of wine tell us?

By observing the color, the drinker can preliminarily judge whether the wine is defective. Most defective wines are dark in color, at least a little brown. It should be noted that some wines that are in good condition but aged over a period of time will also appear brown, especially those aged in oak barrels for a long time.

Secondly, the color of liquor can roughly reflect the year of liquor. With the increase of wine age, the color of red wine will gradually become lighter, from the original ruby red brown and pomegranate red, while the color of white wine will become darker and darker, from lemon yellow to golden amber.

Theoretically, the color intensity of wine corresponds to its body style. The darker the color, the heavier the car body, the lighter the color and the lighter the car body. In fact, the color depth of wine depends on grape varieties, local conditions and brewing technology.

white wine

Young dry white wine is pale, straw yellow or light yellow. Dry white wine is golden yellow if cultivated in oak barrels. The darker the color, the heavier the body. During the aging process of liquor, yellow pigments and phenols in liquor gradually gasified and gradually turned into beige or golden yellow. Ordinary dry white reached this level, indicating that the quality of wine began to decline. If it is high-quality dry white for a long time, it is in the drinking period. If it continues to be stored, the color will develop into amber or brown, and the quality will gradually decline.

red wine

The color of red wine is influenced by factors such as producing area and grape variety, and the change is complicated. Young dry red wine is strawberry red, cherry red, ruby red or purplish red, with high color intensity and luster.

As the storage time goes on, the color of red wine gradually fades, and a yellowish tone appears, and the luster slowly disappears. The reason is that anthocyanin, a phenolic substance in wine, polymerizes during storage, forming wine mud and sinking at the bottom of the bottle. The aged dry red in the drinking period is deep red, ruby red, pomegranate red or purplish red. If it is brick red, brown red or brown, it means that the quality has entered a period of decline.

Light red wine

The color of pink wine depends on grape varieties and soaking time, and it is very rich in color, mostly light pink, orange yellow, orange red, pink, rose red, salmon color or onion skin red. , are basically suitable for young people to drink, but the longer the storage time, the lighter the color.

Third, how to see the color in wine tasting?

Different lighting environment and background will affect our judgment of wine color. In order to make an accurate evaluation, we should use a pure white tablecloth or napkin as the background, hold the cup handle, tilt the glass 30-45 degrees, and observe the color of the wine against the white background.

By observing the hue, brightness, color intensity, transparency, viscosity, foaming, sediment or suspended matter of wine, we can help us to distinguish grape varieties, aging methods, alcohol content, wine age, maturity and quality of wine.

Hue (Vietnamese city)

Every wine has a variety of colors, which will change with the aging time. Therefore, when viewing, we should look for clues through color center, secondary color and rim variation to distinguish grape varieties, producing areas, wine age and quality.

The edges of white wine and most pink wines are almost colorless, so we should distinguish the colors according to the central tone of the wine. When observing the color of red wine, we should shift the visual focus to the edge ribbon of the wine, because the central color of red wine is too dark to be recognized. In addition to paying attention to hue, we also need to pay attention to the edge area of wine. Edge change, also known as halo or waterside, refers to the peripheral edge of wine, mainly observing the width and hue of the edge water color. The wider the sideband, the lighter the color of the wine and the shorter the age of the wine; On the contrary, the longer the wine age, the narrower the water margin and the darker the color.

Transparency and opacity

The transparency and clarity of wine mainly depend on grape variety, technology and aging time. Usually, full-bodied wine is very clear, but the transparency is low, mainly because a large number of pigments block the line of sight. On the contrary, light-bodied wines have high transparency. The quality of wine can be observed by transparency and clarity. A bottle of high-quality wine should be clear, bright and crystal clear. If the liquor is turbid and dull, it means that the liquor is over-oxidized or has deteriorated.

stickiness

Shake the glass, and the wine spins quickly on the glass wall. After the glass is stationary, the wine attached to the wall flows back downward under the action of gravity, and the shape, thickness and speed of the returned wine are observed to identify the quality of the wine. This method is called "hanging glass". Theoretically, the thicker the hanging cup, the bigger the tears and the higher the alcohol content. In addition, glycerol or sugar will also affect the degree of hanging cups. The higher the content of these two components, the stronger the liquor, the bigger the tears, the fuller the liquor and the richer the taste.

The hanging cup of wine is only used to identify the content of alcohol, glycerol and sugar, and does not represent the quality. However, when encountering wines from the same country, the same producing area, the same grade, the same grape variety and the same easy type, the higher the alcohol content, the better the quality. Grape varieties are incomparable in different places of origin.

bubble

Bubble is a unique feature of sparkling wine, and its size, density, fineness and durability are one of the important indicators to distinguish the quality of wine. The bubbles of high-quality sparkling wine are small, uniform, dense, delicate and lasting. If static dry white or dry red has micro-bubbles, there are two situations: first, the light aged wine from warm areas lacks sour ingredients, indicating that the wine is fresh and belongs to ready-to-drink wine; Second, dry red or dry white in a certain year appears this situation, indicating that secondary fermentation has taken place in the bottle, and the wine may have gone bad.