If you’re a newbie to wine, you might be overwhelmed by the numerous wine varieties available.
How can you tell what’s good from bad among the thousands of wines available? How can you pick a good wine to taste for the first time?
This post will give you a general overview of the many types of wines so you won’t be overwhelmed the next time you’re in the wine aisle.
However, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the number of wine bottles on store shelves or restaurant menus.
There are dozens of grape varieties and even more types of wines manufactured from them worldwide.
Knowing more about the many varieties of wine, their flavors, and how they’re manufactured will help you select any different types of wine perfect for the occasion.
Before delving directly into the different types of wines available, let’s discuss what wine is. The fermented juice of a wine grape is wine.
A wine grape is unlike any other grape you’ll find in the supermarket: tiny, sweet, thick-skinned, and full of seeds.
Furthermore, Wine is manufactured from two types of grapes: white grapes (actually green in color) and black grapes (actually red-colored).
Additionally, many other characteristics, such as the wine area, tannins, sweetness, acidity, body, and flavors, influence a wine’s character.
Still, we won’t dive into the subtleties of that right now. Instead, let’s keep things basic and look at the most common different types of wine:
1. Red Wine
Red wines are made from grapes with black skins and colorless liquid. When the grapes are pressed at the winery, the skins mingle with the juice (called must), resulting in a reddish-purple beverage.
Tannins molecules responsible for red wine’s bitterness and mouth-drying quality are also found in grape skins. Also, red wine tannins work as a preservative.
Red wines with higher tannin molecules can age longer than white wines (which do not have tannin) or red wines with lower tannin.
Red wine’s tannins and anthocyanins come out of suspension as it ages, forming sediment at the bottom of the bottle. However, decanting can be used to remove this sediment.
Many red wines are matured in new oak barrels, which impart sweet baking spice, cocoa, chocolate, and vanilla flavors and aromas to the wine.
Furthermore, oak barrel aging softens the tannic structure of red wine, making the wine taste smoother.
Red wine is one of the different types of wine. Its flavors and smells vary depending on the aging technique and grape varietals used.
Also, Red wines have red fruit flavors like strawberry, raspberry, red cherries, red plum, pomegranate, and cranberry, as well as black and blue fruit flavors like black cherry, black plum, blackberry, and blackcurrant (blueberry).
Wines from warmer climates have more luscious, jammy fruit flavors. Earthy scents like potting soil, wet leaves, and barnyards are familiar in the Old World.
In addition, Red Wine is one of the different types of wine which is categorized below:
Bordeaux Red Wine
Many red wines are made up of a variety of grapes. Bordeaux is the best red blend, a French wine made from cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, and other grapes.
Because Bordeaux is a protected appellation, identical blends created in California’s Napa Valley, for example, would be labeled “Meritage” instead (indicating a Bordeaux-style blend)
Chianti
Some red wines, such as Chianti, come from central Italy and are strongly associated with a single grape (in this case, Sangiovese). Yet, the appellation’s laws allow a small percentage of other grapes to be mixed.
Rioja
Rioja is a Spanish blended wine created primarily from the tempranillo grape, the world’s third most planted vine.
Rioja is also a type of wine made from a blend of Tempranillo, Marzullo (also known as Carignan), Garnacha, and Graciano grapes, all of which contribute body and structure to this dry, velvety, and woody wine.
Furthermore, Rioja wines are classified by the time they have spent maturing rather than by vineyard sites, as in Burgundy.
Syrah
Syrah is a grape red wine variety commonly used to produce single-varietal wines. Also, Syrah is a very approachable wine with a robust body and deep, meaty, black fruit notes. This is one of the different types of wines.
Primitivo
This grape and wine are nearly solely produced in southern Italy under Primitivo, whereas the rest of the world refers to them as “zinfandel.” Primitivo wines are recognized for their high alcohol concentration, fruity raisins, black cherry aromas, and high alcohol content.
Beaujolais
Fruity and enjoyable Beaujolais are red wines that don’t behave like one. Glou-glou (French for “glug-glug,” the sound it produces as you gulp it down!) is defined by its low tannin content.
However, this wine has a style for every occasion, from banana and bubblegum-scented Beaujolais nouveau to funky, mineral cru Beaujolais that could pass for pinot noir. This is one of the different types of wine available.
2. White Wine
White wines are produced from green-skinned grapes with colorless juice. Before fermentation, the grape skins are removed for white wines.
Because white wines lack the tannins that red wines get from contact with the grape skins, acid structure, and aroma are more significant.
However, white wines are more likely to be matured in stainless steel barrels, which preserve the aromatic freshness of the wine.
Vanilla, baking spices, coconut, and caramel smells and flavors can be added to white wines by oak aging. Furthermore, White wines come in various styles, from dry to sweet.
Italian pinot grigio, French muscadet, and Austrian grüner veltliner are classic dry white wines. However, some winemakers use the same grapes to make dry and sweet wines.
Also, Riesling grapes are harvested at various stages of ripeness in Germany to produce multiple wines, some lovely and others dry, all from the same vineyard.
Producers of Chenin blanc grapes in France’s Loire Valley will make dry sparkling wine in excellent vintages and sweet dessert wine in warm vintages.
White Wine is one of the different types of wine which is categorized below:
Pinot Grigio
Pinot grigio is a grape commonly used to make a light, pleasant white wine. It has various names in different countries.
In Italy, it’s called pinot grigio, whereas in France, it’s called pinot gris. Pinot grigio is a light, crisp, and dry white wine.
After chardonnay, it is the most popular white wine in the United States. Moreover, Pinot grigio is a dry, acidic, medium to light-bodied wine.
However, depending on the grape-growing location, certain pinot grigios can have a whole to medium body and be sweet and lemony.
Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon blanc is a type of wine and one of the world’s most popular white wine grapes. It is renowned for its distinctive zesty, fruity scent and crisp acidity.
The characteristics of Sauvignon Blanc vary depending on where it is grown, ranging from grassy and grapefruity in France and Italy to robust, powerful tropical fruit and jalapeno in New Zealand.
Riesling
Riesling is a delicious, flowery white wine made from an aromatic white grape. Aromas of citrus, stone fruit, white florals, and petrol are familiar in Riesling wines, which are light in body and high in acidity. Riesling is one of the different types of wine.
Chardonnay
The most popular white wine in the world is Chardonnay. The green-skinned grape may be found in practically every central wine area.
The chardonnay grape is naturally neutral, but it can swiftly take on a range of diverse flavors depending on where it is cultivated and how it is aged. The outcome is a wine that is easy to drink and has a low acidity.
3. Rose Wine
Rosé wines are prepared from red grapes, but after a brief maceration (usually less than 24 hours), the grape skins are removed from the must.
Pink wine comes from the skin but doesn’t provide much tannin. Rosé wines can have flavors similar to red wines, such as strawberry, cherry, and raspberry, and flavors that are more typical of white wines, such as citrus and tropical fruit.
4. Sparkling Wine
Sparkling wines come in various colors, including white, rosé, and red. Depending on the appellation requirements of the region where they are manufactured, they can be made from any grape variety.
You can prepare sparkling wines from a single grape variety or a combination of grapes. Sparkling wines range in sweetness from dry (like brut nature Champagne) to sweet (like Moscato d’Asti).
However, most sparkling wines contain a few grams of sugar to counter their firm acidity. Furthermore, Champagne and prosecco are two of the most well-known sparkling wines.
Champagne can be either a varietal wine (produced from a single grape variety, such as chardonnay, pinot noir, or pinot Meunier) or a blended wine (made from the allowed grapes).
It is produced using the méthode champenoise, the classic method. The first alcoholic fermentation is followed by secondary fermentation to form bubbles in the bottle.
The Charmat process is used to make Prosecco, which is always a varietal wine created from the Glera grape. Secondary fermentation occurs in a big closed tank before the wine is bottled.
5. Fortified Wine
Adding distilled grape spirit to fully or partially fermented wine produces fortified wines (also known as vin de liqueur in Europe).
Except for rare dry sherry varietals, most fortified wines are sweet. Port, Madeira, Marsala, Sherry, Marvin, and the vin doux nature of southern France are fortified wines.
Herbs and botanicals are sometimes used to aromatize fortified wines like vermouth. In addition, the alcohol content of fortified wines is higher than that of other types of wine.
