White wine of Negrar di Valpolicella, 100% of the best Garganega grapes

Wine can be classified according to the type. We therefore find white wine, such as Spumante Brut, red wine, for example the classic Amarone della Valpolicella and rosé wine, such as Molinara Rosato – Rosé wine. It is not only the coloring that differentiates one type from another, even if it is the first characteristic that can be noticed.

Many people may think that white wine is obtained from white grapes and red wine from black grapes. In reality this is not exactly the case. White wine is obtained through a fermentation process without contact with the skin. This means that it is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the colorless grape pulp. The berries can have any color of the peel (skin), but during fermentation, the must is not “stained”. The color obtained ranges from straw yellow, to a yellow-green, up to a golden-yellow hue.

There are many varieties of white wines and this is due to three main factors:

• great diversity of grape varieties
• different ways of vinification
• quantity of residual sugar present in the wine

White wines: a question of skin

White wine has existed for millennia. A fine alcoholic drink that has accompanied the history of humanity since its dawn. With the passage of time production methods and techniques have been improved and refined. Many assume that red wine comes from red grapes and white wine matches white grapes. This is not necessarily true. The color is decreed by the skins of the grapes, that is to say the skin of the grapes. The pulp is almost always colorless, except for the tintoree grapes, which have red pulp.

In rosé wines the red grape skins remain in contact with the must for a very short period, usually 24-48 hours. On the other hand, in white wines, the products from red berried grapes, the solid parts (skins, seeds, stalks) are immediately separated from the liquid ones. This process takes the name of “white vinification“. During the white vinification, the skins, loaded with anthocyanin pigments, therefore do not have the possibility of releasing their color and transmitting it to the must.

What distinguishes white winemaking from red wine is not the color of the grapes, but the absence of maceration during the alcoholic fermentation of the must. This means that white wines can also be obtained starting from black berried grapes.