Red wine
Red wine is made by fermenting dark-skinned grapes, usually with their skins, which supply pigments, tannins, and flavor compounds.
Maceration: The extraction of compounds from solid grape material during winemaking. Contact between juice and grape skins extracts red wine’s color and tannins.
Vitis vinifera: A grapevine species that supplies most grapes used in traditional wine production. Most familiar red-wine grapes are cultivars of this species.
Cabernet Sauvignon: A dark-skinned grape variety known for structured red wines with pronounced tannins and black-fruit flavors. It is a widely planted variety that often produces deeply colored, age-worthy red wine.
White wine: Wine made from grapes fermented with little or no contact between juice and skins. White wine typically avoids the skin extraction that gives red wine its color and tannins.
Anthocyanin: A class of water-soluble pigments that gives many flowers, fruits, and leaves red, purple, or blue colors. Anthocyanins from grape skins create red wine’s color.
Wine grape: A grape variety cultivated primarily for making wine rather than for eating fresh. Red wine begins with grape varieties selected for their juice, skins, and growing conditions.
Pinot noir: A thin-skinned red grape variety used to make wines ranging from light-bodied to richly structured. Its delicate skins and site sensitivity illustrate a contrasting red-wine style.
Rosé wine: Wine with a pink hue, usually made by brief contact between dark grape skins and juice. Rosé uses limited skin contact, unlike the longer maceration common in red wine.
Tannin: A group of plant polyphenols that bind proteins and produce a drying, astringent sensation. Skin and seed tannins shape red wine’s grip and aging potential.
Alcoholic fermentation: The conversion of sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide by yeasts or other microorganisms. Yeast turns grape sugars into the alcohol in red wine.