Where does wine colour come from?

You may think that a white grape will produce white wine, and a red grape red wine; it must be said there is a certain logic to that. Yet it is not quite that simple.

Indeed, once the fruit’s skin is removed, grape juice is always white. In fact, what gives it its colour is precisely the maceration of red grape skins in the fermenting juice. Tiny pigments found in the grape’s skin give the red colour.

For white wine, on the other hand, only the pulp of the fruit is used, which from harvest onwards is no longer in contact with the skin. So the colour stays white… Which means that with the same red grape variety, you can perfectly well obtain both white and red!

And you will also have understood that, conversely, you cannot make red wine from white grapes, since they do not contain colouring pigments.

In practice, however, it is clear that the vast majority of white wines come from white grapes, and red wines from red grapes! But there are exceptions such as Blanc de Noirs, a Champagne speciality…