Wine color

The first impression of a wine that most consumers have is generally its visual appearance. From a production standpoint, a wine’s visual appearance provides information on its history and quality. This chapter summarizes the importance of color in wines, starting with a rationalization for why wine color is important from a consumer as well as a production standpoint. It then introduces the compounds responsible for wine color, their reactivity, and ways in which they can be managed during grape and wine production.