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Red Wine These wines are made, not surprisingly, from red grapes, though the grapes are not exactly red. Typically the skins of red grapes, which contain the pigments that color the wines, are purple or black. When the grapes are crushed and begin the process of fermentation, the skins are left to macerate with the juice. Over time, the pigments, along with tannins, leach from the skins to give the wine color and texture. Red wines are not uniformly red. The colors may run from pale garnet to ruby red to purple and almost black, depending on the grapes used, how the wine was made and how long it has been aged. Red wines may be named after familiar grapes, like cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, malbec or zinfandel, but, especially with European wines, they may be named for the place the grapes are grown, like Gevrey-Chambertin, Priorat, St.-Julien or Barolo.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

White Wine White wines are made from white grapes, which naturally are not white. They are generally greenish and sometimes even speckled with red. For almost all white wines produced today, the skins are whisked away from the grape juice at the beginning of the winemaking process or, at most, a few hours in, eliminating most of the effects of pigments and tannins. Occasionally, you will see wines labeled “orange” or “amber,” or even “skin-contact.” The producers of these wines used white grapes but employed a method for making red wines. The skins and other grape matter are allowed to macerate with the juice, which gives the wine an amber tint and a tannic texture. Conversely, it is also possible to make white wines with red grapes, by taking away the skins immediately. A classic example is blanc de noirs Champagne, a white sparkling wine made from the red grapes pinot noir or pinot meunier or both. White wines, like red wines, will generally carry the names of either grapes or places. So, along with chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, riesling and chenin blanc, you will see whites with names like Mâcon-Villages, Soave, Vouvray and Sancerre.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Rosé Rosé covers wines in a multitude of hues, including the palest onionskin to a deep, translucent cherry. Winemakers have several methods for producing rosé. Most commonly, they begin as if they were making red wine, but allow the skins to steep in the juice only long enough to achieve the desired color. They might also begin to make red wine and, after a proper hue is achieved, bleed off a portion of the juice, which becomes the rosé. This method is called saignée, French for “bled.” It has the additional effect of concentrating the remaining juice as it continues along its path to red wine. A third method, often used for rosé Champagne, is to blend a little bit of red wine into white wine. Most rosé wines are ephemeral, and should be consumed young. But this is not always true. A small number of serious rosés age and evolve beautifully, like some of the great Provençal rosés of Bandol, the idiosyncratic rosé of Château Simone from the appellation of Palette, also in Provence, and the equally distinctive rosé of Valentini, from Abruzzo, Italy. Whether they carry the name of the grape or the place, these wines will generally be labeled as rosé, rosado (Spain) or rosato (Italy). But you’ll know from the color.

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Sparkling Wine Quite a few methods exist for making sparkling wine, but three are worth noting. Champagne, cava and many other sparkling wines use what used to be called the méthode Champenoise but is now known as méthode traditionelle. This requires making a finished still wine and then fermenting it a second time in bottles to produce the bubbles. For this traditional method, the still wine is placed in bottles, along with some yeast and a sweet substance, often grape juice. The bottle is then sealed. A second fermentation begins as the yeast consumes the sugar, which produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct. With no way to escape, the gas carbonates the wine. When the wine is considered ready, the yeast sediment is ejected, or disgorged, and the bottle is corked. This method is labor intensive and time consuming. Rather than a second fermentation in the bottle, inexpensive sparkling wines like mass-market prosecco or Lambrusco use the Charmat method, named for the French inventor Eugène Charmat. These wines are carbonated in bulk by putting the finished still wine, along with yeast and sweetness, in a pressurized tank. The third technique is often called the ancestral method, or méthode ancestrale. These wines are bottled before their first fermentation is complete, and as the fermentation finishes in the sealed container, the sparkle is added. The carbonation is generally tamer, and sometimes the wines are a little sweet. The ancestral method has received new attention with the rising popularity of pétillants naturels, which are made this way. Beyond Champagne, sparkling wine categories that you may encounter include cava, sekt, crémant, pétillant and spumante.

Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times