Learn about different wine styles: white wine, red wine, rosé wine, orange wine, sparkling wine and fortified wine.
Wine is often grouped into six core styles that help make sense of what’s in the glass. Red wines are made from dark-skinned grapes and typically show deeper color, structure, and tannin. White wines range from crisp and refreshing to rich and creamy, depending on grape and wine-making choices. Rosé sits between the two, offering fresh fruit flavors with lighter body and a pink hue. Sparkling wines are defined by their bubbles, created through a second fermentation that adds lift and energy. Orange wines are white grapes fermented with their skins, giving them texture, color, and savory complexity. Finally, fortified wines have added spirit, resulting in higher alcohol and often richer, more concentrated flavors. Together, these six styles form the foundation for understanding how wine looks, tastes, and behaves across the world.
Wine Styles
White wine can be made from white or black grapes. The 4 noble varieties are Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc. However, there are hundreds of white grapes around the world, many indigenous to the region where they are grown!
Red wine is made from black grapes. The pigment in the dark skins add color, flavor and texture to the wine. The 4 noble varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Syrah. However, there are many more around the world, each with different aromas and flavors!
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Rosé wine is made from black grapes. In most cases, the wine juice only has short contact with the dark skins, making the final wine pink. Rosés can be light pink or dark pink, depending on the amount of time the wine spends mixing with its dark skins.
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“Orange wine” is the term given to white grapes that have had prolonged contact with their skins and seeds. Usually when we drink white wine, we are only drinking the clear juice that has been pressed from white grapes. However, orange wine is made like red wine, where the clear juice is mixed with its skins (for days, weeks or months) to create an
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Sparkling wine is produced when CO2 (a gas created during fermentation), is trapped inside the bottle. The pressure creates bubbles! Sparkling bottles are thick and sturdy to maintain the intense gas pressure within. The gas is released with a “pop” when we open sparkling wine bottles.
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Fortified wine has the addition of spirit or liquor, raising the ABV up to 22% in some cases! Common forms of fortified wine are Sherry, Port, and Madeira.
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