{"id":10698,"date":"2018-05-31T16:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.xtrawine.com\/?p=10698"},"modified":"2018-12-07T17:54:38","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T16:54:38","slug":"how-do-wines-change-colour-as-they-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.xtrawine.com\/en\/how-do-wines-change-colour-as-they-age\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do Wines Change Colour as They Age?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ll have likely noticed that most wine reviews make at least a small mention of the colour of the wine. Those who aren\u2019t experienced with the Italian wine<\/a> industry may not know why this is. After all, the colouring of the wine shouldn\u2019t have an effect in its quality, right?<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s true that the colour doesn\u2019t directly affect quality, it is an indirect indicator that you can use to determine a number of things about a bottle of wine. Chief amongst these is its maturity level. As a wine matures, its colour tends to evolve. For white wines, you\u2019ll note that the wine eventually goes from having a greenish colouring to a more straw yellow colouring. Red wines, by contrast, have usually reached their optimal age when their colour takes on a deep ruby red hue.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a generalisation, of course. There are a lot of subtleties that go into this. But the fact remains that a wine\u2019s colour really does matter.<\/p>\n

How Does Red Wine Evolve?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We gave a basic idea of the colours you can expect from different types of wine above. But to become a true Italian wine connoisseur, you need to know how to check for those colours and what you can expect from a wine at different points of its lifecycle.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at red wines first. You can just peer at the bottle to determine the colour of a red wine. The colouring of the bottle itself will misled you, plus the wine has little room to move, which means that you can\u2019t swirl it at all.<\/p>\n

You can only accurately check the colour of a red wine once you\u2019ve poured it. Unfortunately, that creates a point of no return for the picky drinker. So, we\u2019d recommend testing this technique out on a wine that you don\u2019t mind wasting, rather than cracking open that bottle of red that you\u2019ve been saving for a special occasion.<\/p>\n

Now for the technique. Pour a small amount of the wine into a glass and hold it up against a white backdrop. Tilt the glass slightly and you should start to notice some different colours, depending on the age of the wine.<\/p>\n