Take a Good Look in the Mirror: Are you a Wine Racist?

It’s the year 2012. One would think times have changed. Or have they? I've been hearing a lot of bad things going on in the world these days. There is a lot of tension out there. I want to know if color still actually matters to people around the world.

I consider myself an intelligent person who understands the way the world works. I have done my fair share of research and have taken the time to look at all of the perspectives people can have. I “get” the process and for me color does not matter. I personally believe that anyone who still thinks that color is a defining characteristic is ignorant and as Hawkeye from Last of the Mohicans would say, "stuck in the ways of the old ways of the Yangeeze and Le Francais traders", in other words, close minded. All I ask is that people stop thinking they can understand based on color alone. It’s an invalid way to assess quality. Character comes fro within. Quality begins in the roots.

I use color for recognition purposes only.  I come from a very diverse area of the world (the West Coast of the United States) where there are so many different types of colors that you’d have to be a fool not to use that as a way of identification (ruby, garnet, purple, opaque,brown) . Cabernet, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Merlot all can have their color be observed to help distinguish which variety is which (you are probably a massive wine geek if you can do that on color alone).  You can identify a Pinot Noir from its bright red and clear color, but you can’t tell me if it is a good or bad wine based only off of that observation.

Wine gets its color from contact with the grape skins during the winemaking process.  This contact is done in order to extract tannins for the flavor of the wine. The longer and more intense the contact is (done during the winemaking process by punching the layer of floating grape skins down into the juice) the more powerful the tannins will be. This is all affecting the intensity of the color of the wine. Tannins (along with quality of the fruit) are also what help the aging process of the wine (the stronger the tannins are, the longer it will take to mature), so when people focus on gaining tannins they will inevitably gain a deeper colored wine.

The color of your wine is simply a direct result of a person's personal winemaking process. If you have really great fruit, punch downs can become less needed because you don't have to work as hard for extraction. This might result in a really light colored wine but still has amazing balance with tannins, acidity and alcohol. You can also punch a crappy wine down as many times as you want. The color might look great, but the wine won’t be any good because you’ve done way too much and extracted too many low quality tannins out of your low quality fruit.

Anywho, I’m not saying all high quality wines don’t get a lot of punch downs. I would be a liar if I said that. Many of the best wines in Bordeaux, Burgundy and California are created by amazing wine makers, working with the highest quality fruit. They have mastered the punch down process and understand what they are looking for with their tannin extraction (punch downs). Many of these wines will be very difficult to drink young, but can be aged for 30 plus years.

 All I’m saying is don’t be the wine drinker’s version of Old Willard McConkey down in Pearl, Mississippi and make decisions based off of color. It really has no say in whether or not a wine is going to be good. An open minded person uses color to understand the variety and the age of a wine, while a wine racist thinks they can judge a wines quality based on their color. Are You a wine racist? I hope not.

Do YOU think the color of wine matters? Feel free to comment.