Info about Wines
Wine Freshness
Wine has often been depicted as a fascinating fizzy drink with a great zing and freshness, normally available in radiant gold and red colors. It has the scent of vanilla and mandarins with a lemon punch and is available in strong fruit flavors of apricots, pink grapefruits and melons. The elaborate chemical processes, which play a vital in wine making, determine the look, taste and scent of wines. The clarity and sparkling appearance of wine helps to ascertain its quality. The more sparkling and brighter a wine is, the better the quality is.
• Clarity:
Even wines, which are highly concentrated, need to be sparkling and clear in appearance instead of being cloudy. It's significant to realize the difference between wines that contain residue and those which have a cloudy appearance. Residue is the consequence of tannins, which precipitates out of the liquor and the majority of old and younger wines will normally have residue. If a bottle of wine is held in a vertical position, then the wine's residue will accumulate at the bottom. But in case of turbid wines it always remains cloudy even if it is allowed to settle for a long time.
• Intensity:
The term intensity helps to describe the concentrated color, flavor and aroma of wine. The flavor intensity of wine is a key factor in coupling it with food, and also determines its uniqueness. The color intensity of wine helps to determine its quality. Color intensity of wine can vary from extremely light to extremely dark hues. For those who love wine the color intensity offers the first signs of the wine?s age and variety. Older wines are more likely to be yellow in color while red wines have a tendency to be more brownish.
• Color:
Wine normally comes in two distinct colors, such as red and white. The color of wine comes from the skin of the grapes and also depends on the fermentation process. Therefore, white wines are prepared from white color grapes while red wines are prepared from red color grapes. White grapes in reality possess a slightly brownish or green colored skin while red grapes are more purplish or almost black in color.
• White wines- White wines are actually not pure white in color, but they are rather colorless or sometimes they even come in different hues like pale green, yellow, gold, honey or amber. The variety of shades reveals the types as well as the degree of ripeness of the grapes used in the production of a particular wine. When white wines age they are more likely to become more yellowish gold in color.
• Rose wines- Rose wines, are nothing but a close relative of red wines. The pigment is produced by fermenting the skin of grapes along with its juice for short period of time.
• Red wines- The red color is produced due to fermentation of the grape juice along with the skins and pulp. In the course of the fermentation process the skin of the fruit release the red pigment. Besides the red color, during fermentation the grape skins also emit a variety of other substances, which create the astringency which is distinctive to all red wines.
Rim/core- When the wine is poured in a wine glass it has a blue-black core along with a delicate ruby violet rim with multihued viscosity which gives out an array of colors like raspberries, plums and violets.
• Other observations
The appearance and the color of the wine can reveal a great deal about the wine taste, quality and age. Besides color, there are other things that need to be taken into consideration in order to correctly interpret the appearance of a particular wine, for example wine legs, bubbles and deposits. Thus in order to become a good wine taster you need to first focus on the look of a particular wine.
• Bubbles- Sparkling wines consists of significant amount of carbon dioxide within itself which makes it fizzy. The carbon dioxide is produced due to fermentation over an extended period of time. When a wine bottle is uncorked and is poured in a glass the carbon dioxide escapes in the air in the form of bubbles. The consistency and the size of the bubbles vary based on the wine quality.
• Legs- The legs of wine mean the wine stripes, which gradually move down the wall of the wine glass when the wine is swirled. In reality, the wine legs indicate the level of viscosity of the wine present in the wine glass. Thus if a wine is very viscous then the wine legs will be more pronounced.
• Deposits- Deposits in wine are produced by the decomposition of tannin and pigments that are present in the wine, over an extended period of time. As wine matures, small quantities of these phenolic composites slowly accumulate at the base of the wine bottle. Thus before drinking it is advisable to keep the wine glass in an upright position for some time to allow the deposits to settle at the bottom.