Sommelier Circle

Types of Wine

7/12/2024

Consumers wanting to learn more about types of wine face a rather intimidating number of variables. These include thousands of grape varieties and wine regions (several thousand on our site and growing).

Then there is the terminology, from the basic (but sometimes confusing) such as “dry” and “sweet”, through to wine style categories (such as “crisp and dry”) and technical terms concerning grape growing and winemaking. This specialist jargon may often appear on wine labels.

Wine-Searcher editorial

Last updated 01-Dec-2021

Here, we try to help you pick a path through all of this information. Many discussions of “Wine Types” focus on styles of wine (dry, dessert, sparkling etc). At Wine-Searcher we take a broader view, and wine “styles” is just one basis for categorization, as you will see from the table of contents below.

You will find a brief overview of the different ways we categorize wine on Wine-searcher, beginning with the most fundamental; red, white and rosé, dessert, and sparkling.

Wine types and wine styles, according to wine-searcher.com

Our Wine Styles pages cover what some other websites call "types", but styles are just one way to divide wines into types.

These are more subjective categories than most mentioned here. Many wines are hard to pigeonhole, and one taster might place a wine in one, while another may have a different opinion.

Tasting terms

The terms listed below are principal parts of the wine-tasting vocabulary. For many consumers, wines are simply categorized by their likes and dislikes.

These characteristics can vary according to a wide array of factors, including grape variety (or varieties) used, region, vineyard characteristics (terroir), growing methods, and winemaking techniques.

The basics

Color – from black via ruby to pink and brown, from water white through lemon, straw, gold and amber. With both white and red wines, a deeper color can be a sign of a heavier wine, but there are plenty of exceptions. And a golden white wine might be sweet, heavily oaked, from a deeply colored or red grape, mature, or a combination of all four.
Taste – strictly speaking, sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.
Aroma – detailed professional “tasting notes” are really based on aroma; either when smelling the wine in the glass, or when smelling the aromas of the wine in the mouth.
Texture – via your sense of touch. A silky texture may be due to high viscosity from alcohol, or may be a function of the tannin character of the wine. "Mouthfeel" is related wine jargon.
Wine Body – can refer to texture derived from alcohol, also can be a sign of a high level of extract (solids in suspension) in the grape. Often linked to tannin and structure, but not exactly the same thing.

Chemical composition

Tannin – astringent; dries your mouth, like overbrewed tea. Polymers derived from grape skins, pips, and also oak. Can be masked by sweetness and alcohol in a wine, and balanced by proteins in food.
Acidity – makes the mouth water and gives a sour taste. Wines from cooler locations tend to have more acidity and less (sugar-derived) alcohol. Tartaric, citric and malic acids are the most common.
Sugar – the tip of the tongue is most sensitive to residual sweetness. Perceived sweetness is lower in wines with higher acidity. Residual sugar in a wine is typically 60 to 70 percent fructose, though this varies according to the grape variety and yeast strain used.
Alcohol – through glycerin contributes viscosity and can add to the perception of sweetness. A wine where the alcohol is not in balance can taste “hot” or spirity.

Qualitative terms

Length – literally the length of time the tastes and aromas remain after swallowing. See also finish.
Balance – where all the components such as acidity, tannin, alcohol and sweetness are in harmony. Accordingly, such wines are often hard to describe, other than being “nice”.
Elegance – even more subjective, and often applied to one particular element such as acidity or tannin, perhaps suggest that it is noticeable yet subtle.
Mousse – the fizz in a sparkling wine described via our sense of touch, in the mouth. As a rough guide smaller bubbles are best, to the extent that they should be hardly discernible on the tongue.

Some terms are easy to confuse. Often a wine with very little sugar but aromas of ripe fruit can seem “sweet”. Similarly, a wine can seem dry because, while there is residual sugar, it is balanced by acidity.

When wines are described with adjectives such as “harsh”, there are several possible causes. Perhaps the tannin (drying) is high, or the acidity (also puckering but mouthwatering), or the alcohol (heat).

Basic winemaking differences

Wine types and characteristics are often closely tied to the methodologies used in their production.

What is the difference between red and white winemaking?

Red wines are made from black grapes – AKA red wine grapes or red grapes. These tend to look black-purple, with varying levels of blue tint, and can actually be reddish in color on occasion.

The color does not come principally from the flesh but from the skins. Hence, red wine is made by fermenting juice and skins together. This also provides tannins and various compounds.

White grapes are generally made by fermenting the juice of white grapes (green, yellow, sometimes pinkish) away from the skins. It is possible to make white wines from many red grapes, provided the juice is separated from the skins (where most of the color compounds are found) as soon as possible and just ferment the juice. Blanc de Noirs Champagne base wine is made like this.

Orange wine

Orange wines have a small but committed following. These are made with white grapes, but with prolonged skin contact during fermentation bringing color, weight, richness and a degree of tannin. Often the wines are left alone to ferment and mature without winemaker intervention; amphorae, harking back to the classical period are often used.

Rosé winemaking

A number of basic methods are used for rosé:

Short maceration: i.e. juice has a short time on skins before being pressed and fermented like a white wine.
Vin Gris (Gray Wine) is an almost-white wine made from a very short maceration.
Direct pressing: no skin/juice contact other than while the grapes are pressed – usually very pale.
Saignée (“bleeding”) method; a by-product of red wine making where some juice is drawn away from the ferment, thus concentrating the remaining juice in the red wine being made. Saignée rosé wines tend to be relatively deep in color.
Blending red and white wine: favored for the production of rosé Champagne. For quality still wines the practice is rare.

Dessert wine

Many sweet dessert wines are made from grapes where the water content has been reduced in some way:

Late harvest wines are made from grapes which either super-ripe (but retain full water content) or have begun to raisin on the vine, further concentrating sugars. Less sweet wines can come from grapes that are super ripe, but not shriveled
Vin de Paille, strohwein, Passito and Vin Santo made from picked grapes left to dry in the sun or indoors in warm rooms or in the rafters
Cane-cutting or pinching so the fruit no longer accesses moisture and energy via the roots, and dries on the vine.
Eiswein or ice wine (especially from Canada, Germany and Austria), where grapes are picked in winter when frozen (or in some regions frozen artificially). Here water is separated out from the other juice components (with higher freezing points) as ice in the press
Botrytis wine – Sauternes and Tokaji are the most famous examples, though their methodologies are very different. The grapes are affected by a desirable mold called Botrytis cinerea (noble rot). This shrivels the grape and changes the taste and aroma without ruining it. Generally, the wines can have common honeyed and marmalade characters. Botrytis gives a very indicative medicinal-honeyed aroma, while ice wines can often remind the taster of the syrup in canned fruit.
Stopped fermentations may be employed to leave some residual sugar. In the case of Moscato d’Asti the fermentation is stopped by cooling at around 5 percent abv.
Fortification may also be used for sweet wines. This is usually done at an early stage in fermentation, before all the sugars are turned into alcohol. “Normal”, dried or late harvest grapes are usually used, rather than frozen of botrytis-affected grapes
Back blending or back sweetening is the process of adding sugar or unfermented grape juice to a finished wine. Care needs to be taken that the wine is stable enough to prevent the ferment from restarting. The practice is reasonably common in-home winemaking.

Fortified wine

This is the addition of alcohol to wine, partially fermented juice, or unfermented juice. It is carried out to stabilize the wine and to stop fermentations, retaining sugar.

For more details on different methodologies see our pages on

Sparkling wine

There are various ways in which bubbles can end up in wine. These include:

Traditional or Champagne Method – where a base wine is bottled and then has extra sugar and yeast added and is then capped. It then undergoes a second fermentation and maturation where the carbon dioxide is captured in that same bottle
Charmat or tank fermentation – where a base wine has additional sugar and yeast added for a second fermentation in pressurized tanks
Methode ancestrale / Petillant Naturel / Pet Nat – where a wine is bottled before the (first and only) fermentation is finished. This means that the remaining carbon dioxide is captured in the bottle, often with some yeast which leaves the wine cloudy
Carbonation – simply injected carbon dioxide.

For more details on Champagne production see our detailed guide.

Oak

“Oaky” is often a key wine type for consumers, particularly with white wines. Oak is perhaps a little harder to discern among red wines.

There are so many variables with oak in winemaking, including the size, shape and of the vessel, whether it is new or used. Some old casks are so heavily line with deposits they are neutral and offer gentle oxidation rather than any flavoring.

An oak-aged or fermented wine might not have seen a barrel or cask. Instead staves (planks) might be inserted into or tank, or, for less expensive wines, oak chips may be used.

The source of the oak can be important; French oak has tighter pores than American oak, and there are subtler variations between forests. How the oak was prepared is important, including seasoning (weathering outside after cutting), toast levels (charring) and construction. Then there is whether the wine is fermented or aged in oak, or both.

One fermented in stainless steel will rely on aromas derived from the fruit – though a touch of pear can be a sign of temperature-controlled, stainless-steel ferments. A white wine fermented in new barrels will likely show vanilla characters and/or aromas of coconut and baking spices.

These aromas can add to the perception of sweetness in wine. In addition, new oak in particular can release molecules called quercotriterpenosides to which our tongues’ sugar receptors are highly receptive.

For a detailed overview see our Ultimate Guide to Oak in Winemaking. Note also that, especially in Italy and Eastern Europe, other woods, though rare, might be used.

Other key winemaking techniques

Grapes for Amarone della Valpolicella wine drying on racks. The shrivelled grapes are then fermented to dryness, producing a deeply colored red wine with high alcohol levels

There are several winemaking techniques that can have similar affects to those derived from oak:

Malolactic fermentation: standard in red winemaking and employed often in white wines. Through careful temperature control, sharper malic acid is converted to softer lactic acid, to avoid tartness and add creaminess to the wine.
Lees ageing: used for white wine; after ferment the wine rests on its sediment of spent yeast cells and other settled solids for a time. These may be stirred up by the winemaker to enhance the effect. A few weeks or months can add texture. Obvious yeasty characters are most common with Champagne, where spent lees remain in the bottle for 12 months or more during production.

Another technique that can make a big difference to the way a wine tastes is carbonic maceration. This is the fermentation inside the cells of an unbroken (almost always red) grape. Responsible for the bubblegum aromas of many Beaujolais. Also used for some southern French reds, and everyday Rioja reds.

Follow the links to our Technical Terms area to find out more and to discover more explanations of terminology.

Grape varieties as wine types

For many consumers, “wine type” means the same thing as “which grape variety”. Many are loyal to one particular grape, either through habit or firm preference. Furthermore, many information sources focus on grape varieties as a way to navigate through types of wine; this is broadly a New-World approach.

In fact, many different styles or types of wines can be made from the same grape. And often where the grape is grown can have a big impact on whether the wine produced is a light or heavy red wine, unoaked or oaked white, and so on.

As mentioned above, there are around 10,000 known wine grape varieties. However, many of these are not in regular commercial use; Wine-Searcher currently has a very comprehensive list of many hundreds of varieties on our database, though a few dozen dominate global production.

Principal wine grape varieties

The top 10 most planted grape varieties are (OIV 2016 figures)

Cabernet Sauvignon Red
Merlot Red
Tempranillo Red
Airén (used for Spanish brandy) White
Chardonnay White
Syrah / Shiraz Red
Grenache (Garnacha) Red
Sauvignon Blanc White
Trebbiano Toscano (Ugni Blanc) White
Pinot Noir Red

Geography: regions, appellations, vineyards

Is a producer’s perspective more than a consumers one and broadly follows more old-world approach While for many consumers the grape is king, for others, the place or appellation is the main differentiating factor.

Of course, two wines from within a set region, subregion/appellation or vineyard can taste very different because of all these other variables discussed on this page. And wines from fruit grown just a few meters apart can also be quite different due to very localized differences in growing conditions, or terroir.

Terroir

Terroir is generally portrayed as a unique differentiating factor by wine producers. It is a broad term with its root in “terra” – earth – but combines multiple factors. These include macroclimate, weather, altitude, aspect, soil, steepness of slopes, soil, and interactions with humans and flora and fauna.

On the other hand, vineyards in different parts of the globe can have similar terroir. Therefore, they have the potential to produce wines that are similar in style.

Food and wine pairing

We wine drinkers quite commonly choose wine according to how well it will match a certain dish or food type. Often wines of very different styles can partner the same cuisine.

For more information go to our pages on food and wine pairing.

Critics, scores and acclaim

For many wine lovers and enthusiasts, a high score from fellow consumers or a favored critic, or a trophy or gold medal in a wine competition, is a key influence in buying decisions. Consumers may also place importance on official classifications, such as the 1855 Classification of Médoc and Graves.

Browse our Critics and Awards sections to find your favorite expert, publication or wine awards and their highest-marked and medal-winning wines. You will also find User ratings (out of five stars) for many of the products on Wine-Searcher’s database.

Other wine types

There are numerous other categories applied to wine which are related to production methods and /or dietary and religious requirements. Examples which Wine-Searcher uses to provide more information to our users include:

Organic

Biodynamic

Natural Wine

Vegan

Vegetarian

Gluten free

Low sugar

Low carbs

Kosher

Meshuval

This is just a partial list, but it further demonstrates just how many wine types can be defined, providing bewildering choice to the consumer.