Red, white, rosé and sparkling: how each wine is made

Colour is a skin decision

Squeeze almost any wine grape, red or green. The juice runs clear. Colour, along with most of the tannin, lives in the skins. So the first question for any wine is how long the juice spends with its skins. Hours, days or not at all.

That one choice explains most of the difference between the styles below. It also explains why a single grape such as Pinot Noir can end up in a red, a rosé or a sparkling white.

White wine: press first, ferment cool

For white wine the grapes are pressed quickly and the skins are thrown out, usually before fermentation starts. The juice is often settled or chilled overnight so solids drop out, then fermented cool in stainless steel to hold on to fresh fruit and floral aromas.

Some whites, Chardonnay in particular, may be fermented or aged in oak for a richer, rounder style. Most whites are made to be drunk young, within a year or two of the vintage. For a planner, that means stock that moves fast and loses appeal if it sits.

Red wine: ferment on the skins

Red grapes are crushed and the whole mass of juice, skins and seeds goes into the fermenter. As the yeast works, alcohol and warmth draw colour and tannin out of the skins. The cellar team keeps the floating cap of skins wet by punching it down or pumping juice over it.

When the winemaker is happy with colour and structure, the wine is drained off and the skins are pressed. Many reds then go through malolactic conversion and spend time in tank or barrel before bottling. A soft, fruity red may be ready in months. A structured red built for ageing can spend two years or more in the cellar, tying up tank space and working capital.

Rosé: a short time on the skins

Rosé is made from red grapes with only brief skin contact, typically a few hours rather than days. The juice picks up a little colour and then is handled like a white wine: pressed off, fermented cool and bottled young.

Some rosé comes from bleeding off part of the juice from a red wine tank early, a method called saignée. Mixing finished red and white wine to make rosé is not allowed in most European appellations, with rosé Champagne as the well-known exception. Rosé is a fresh style. Last year's rosé is a harder sell than this year's.

Sparkling wine: a second fermentation

Bubbles are carbon dioxide from fermentation, trapped instead of allowed to escape. Most quality sparkling wine starts as a sharp, fairly neutral still base wine. Yeast and a little sugar are then added so a second fermentation happens in a closed container.

• Traditional method. The second fermentation happens in the bottle you buy. The wine rests on its yeast, often for many months, then the yeast is worked into the neck, frozen and ejected. A small dose of wine and sugar, the dosage, tops it up. Champagne and Cava are made this way.
• Tank method. The second fermentation happens in a large pressure tank. The wine is then filtered and bottled under pressure. It is quicker and keeps fresh fruit to the fore. Most Prosecco is made this way.

The cheapest sparkling wines are simply carbonated, like a soft drink. On the label, terms such as brut and extra dry describe how much sugar went in with the dosage. Extra dry is confusingly sweeter than brut.

What the styles mean for stock and service

For anyone planning or selling wine, the styles behave differently. Whites, rosés and tank-method sparkling are fast products: made in months, best sold within a year or two. Ageable reds and traditional-method sparkling are slow products that sit in the cellar while the money waits.

Service differs too. Sparkling and whites want proper chilling, which matters in an Indian summer where a delivery van can cook a case in an afternoon. Reds are best a little below what most of us call room temperature. If you want to go a step further, the grapes behind each style are in our grape varieties guide.

Reading about skin contact gets you halfway. Tasting a white and a rosé made from the same red grape side by side gets you the rest.