The Eye
The first contact with the wine is visual. Hardly used, the eye applied to the color and brightness. In the glass, the wine already told his story to the attentive taster. By observing her dress, that is to say its color, brilliance, his drive, his legs, he harvests valuable clues. The wine reveals his origin, his age, his personality or his quality.
Observe the dress
Initially, the taster strives to set the color of the dress, through its hue and intensity, as well as its clarity. To observe, it must hold the glass in front of a light background (eg a white wall) or place it on top of a white surface, a light source.
The Tint
The color of a wine is evaluated according to two parameters, its hue and intensity. The vocabulary used to describe the first impression his words to gemstones (rubies, topaz), metals (gold, copper), flowers (rose, peony) and fruit (lemon, cherry).
The Intensity
The nuances are numerous, it is important to qualify the shade by its intensity. She goes to dense pale through "clear", "dark", "dark", "intense", "deep". Some words used as "poor", "light" and "low", already give an idea of he quality.
The Clarity
It must be perfect and not be disturbed by any foreign matter in suspension, such as dust, flakes.
Attention all the same, the new trend has filtered naturally makes them less clear and wines can show Elements suspended not alter in any way the quality of the wine.
As inferred from the color of the wine?
The color of a wine not only information on its category - white, red, rosé - but also on the age of the vines, the performance, the year of the vintage, the wine age and possibly its farming method.
Grape varieties and vintages
The coloring matter of a wine comes from the pigments in the skin of grapes. Shortly present in white grapes, they are important contrast in red grapes, but of different intensity depending on the variety. A wine made from gamay grape shows a dress with a pretty ruby, very distinct from that of a wine made from Cabernet Sauvignon, dark garnet. The maturity of the skin conditioning the pigments, the color intensity of a wine also depends on the quality of the vintage. Thus a Medoc 1994 he shows a less intense color than the more concentrated a 1996 warmest year. In the same way the white wines have a more sombre hue dress when the grapes were picked in very warm years, which favor a slightly overripe.
The Vine Performance
The color intensity is also the result of performance that the winemaker has achieved vines. The higher the yield, the lower the grapes will be concentrated and colored juices. Conversely, the lower it is, the more the wine gains in intensity. This is for example the case of old vines, some loaded with grapes, which give wines a still very strong color.
The State of the grape
The health grape quality also plays his role. From a rotten grapes, the wine shows little color intensity regardless of variety and performance.
The Age
With age, the color of a white wine grows, that of a red wine fades. Thus, the observation of the hue of a wine can assess its age. Very young, red (and some rosés) show a bluish hue that often gives purple highlights in the dress.
Over time, this one is adorned with orange reflections due to the yellowing of the pigments and tannins. White with few tannins, their dress evolved much more slowly, in shades of green and yellow.