Why do we call white wine ‘white’ when it’s not?

A very good question. “White” wine is made from grapes whose skins are coloured green to yellow and sometimes even slightly pink (pinot gris, for example) when they’re harvested at full ripeness. Their juice is invariably clear, almost like water, and their wine is pale-yellow.

Those who market our wine in China find this frustrating since the Chinese associate the colour white with death and mourning. Red, on the other hand, is associated with power and virility. I’ve heard it suggested we should market our white wines there as “golden”, since gold is a colour associated with wealth and prosperity.

To further confuse the colour issue, the French call red grapes “black”. This isn’t as serious as the white-wine issue, but you could ask a similar question of red grapes.

The finished wine may indeed be red, but the grapes are a dark-purple, almost black, when fully ripe. And like white grapes, their juice is also clear, like water.

It’s only the fermentation process that gives a red wine its colour; the colour pigments are leached out of the skins by the solvent effect of the alcohol. As fermentation proceeds and there’s more alcohol in the liquid, more colour is extracted. Of course, some red grapes, such as pinot noir, nebbiolo, gamay and grenache, are less deeply coloured than others and their wines tend to be lighter-coloured.

We call our pink wines rosé, a word we borrowed from the French, where “rose” simply means pink. No confusion there – or is there? Rosé wines come in many shades of pink, from deep purple-pink to smoked-salmon pink, orange-pink, onion-skin or even a coppery hue. With time, they quickly morph from purple-tinged to gold to tawny. Provençal rosé, these days, is almost colourless.

White grapes that are fermented with their skins are termed “amber” wines because of their colour.

At least “white” is the universal word to describe wine that’s neither red, nor pink, nor amber. “Blanc” in French, “bianco” in Italian, “blanco” in Spanish. It’s just too bad the colour – or lack of it – carries negative connotations in some cultures. Maybe that’s their problem.

This week’s question was submitted by J.V., Albury, NSW

Got a drinks question for Huon Hooke? thefullbottle@goodweekend.com.au