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27 November 2024

Red wine is less about colour and more about texture

And the great ones can be as moving as music.

By Andrew Jefford

What brings stature and significance to red wine? What commands the next sip, marks a memory, or turns a conversational lubricant into a topic in its own right?

Red and white wines, remember, are different objects. White wine is a ferment of pressed juice alone. Not so red wine: its juice undergoes a conversational exchange with grape skins, pips, and sometimes even stems, during and after fermentation. That’s the source of its dark colours – and at best, much else.

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