From white, red, orange, rose, and sparkling, you can practically taste the colours of the rainbow. I’m very particular with as and when I drink my wines. Red has to be in winter, sat by a log burner, rose is a summer drink, sat in the garden with the sun beaming down. But white, orange and sparkling I will drink all year round. By no means is this a standard practice, it’s purely the atmosphere a wine can instil in me from a sip. Due to my love of wine, I thought I might as well do some research into some favourites.
Firstly, let’s educate ourselves on the difference between the colours. The colour of wine depends on the fermentation process. When fermenting red wine, winemakers leave the red grape skin on which gives the wine its ruby red hue. Whereas with white wine the skins are removed before fermentation, resulting in a clear juice. Rose wines are produced from freshly pressed red grapes and soaked with the skins very briefly to achieve a delicate pink tinge. And for orange, it’s a very similar process to rose, except with white wine grapes, which are soaked with the skins for a very long time in order to extract the amber colour. However, they can be divided up even further into different shades, which can tell you information such as the body of the wine, the tannins, the flavour and the ageing.
Sauvignon Blanc has been a longstanding favourite of mine that I always gravitate towards to. The roots of Sauvignon Blanc are thought to lie in the Loire valley where the grape was first mentioned in 1543 by writer Francois Rabelais. The scent is unmistakeable; hints of nettle and boxwood, of passion fruit and peach, followed by zesty lime freshness and expect flavours of green apple and Mirabelle plum with herbal and floral undertones that stand well against its sometimes flinty and sometimes smoky minerality. The wine is light so is best paired with meats such as chicken, crab and salmon. If you’d like to pair it with a cheese, it is best complimented by something soft, creamy, and flavourful, such as goat’s cheese. Vegetable pairings such as zucchini, asparagus, and leeks. Now you’ve got yourself ingredients to make some delicious dishes that will go perfectly with a bottle of Savvy B.
I’ve recently treated myself to a bottle of Vinho Verde. Vinho Verde’s are the perfect settlement if you want something sparkling that’s not going to create a jacuzzi in your stomach. Vinho Verde is a Portuguese wine that originated in the historic Minho Province in the far north of the country. The fizz from the wine is due to carbonation occurring in the bottle from winemakers bottling it so quickly that the fermentation would finish in the bottle. Tasting notes are often close to lemonade, white melon, gooseberry, grapefruit and lime blossom. Vinho Verde pairs beautifully with fish, seafood, light cheese, and pickles, and can hold its own against spicy food, due to the acidity and fizz cutting through. And obviously, if you’re hosting a meal, it would be wrong not to serve some Portuguese egg custard tarts for dessert.
There is so much more to the land of wine, and I think I really need to make it a hobby of mine. If you’re interested in expanding your horizons in this world, Another is the perfect place to start. You can help yourself to as many different wines as you’d like, dispensing them from a wine vending machine! Here and at Delilah’s, they occasionally host wine-tasting events if you fancy a real expert to walk you through everything you need to know about the wine, its notes and the regions it comes from. And with that, I’m going to go pour myself a glass of wine. Cheers!