Colour

Wine is often identified by its colour - red, white or rosé - but there’s a great deal more to it than that. Red wines can be opaque and almost black, or they can be the colour of dark rosé. White wine can be water-white, or a deep yellow. Rosé wine can range from the palest salmon pink, to quite dark pink. There are also fortified wines to consider. Sherry, for example, is classed as a white wine, since it is made from white grapes, but its colours can vary from the pale colour of fino to the near-black of an old oloroso. Port (technically a red wine) can be the deep black of a young vintage wine, or the nut-brown of an aged tawny. Even faced with a vast range of wine colours, we can draw useful conclusions about a wine by looking at it.