White Wine

White wine is a wine that is fermented without skin contact. The colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-coloured pulp of grapes, which may have a skin of any colour. White wine has existed for at least 2500 years.Chardonnay grapesGerman Riesling B grapes at maturitySauvignonSmall white grapes of Muscat BGrapevine of Airen, the most planted vat grape in the world.Chasselas, for vat and table wine.Chenin .Trebbiano blanco or ugni blanc B.The Gewurztraminer grape variety with a pink skin which produces a white wine.Pinot Meunier, a black grape widely used for white or rosé champagne.Pinot Noir, a black grape used for the production of white wine.Step 1: grape berries.Step 2: grape juice.Step 3: juice, filtered, not decanted.Step 4: juice, filtered and decanted.Step 5: the lees: to be filtered.A traditional wine bottle.Wine keeps well in an aluminium can.Australian wine in a Bag-In-Box.PET is a neutral packaging for wine.A bottle from Bordeaux: (a bordelaise).A bottle of Bourgogne: (a bourguignonne).Bottles from Champagne: (champagnes).A bottle from Alsace: (a flûte).A bottle from Provence: (a flûte with corset, or flute provençale, or flute quille).A bottle from Jura(a jurassienne).A bottle of yellow wine from Jura: (a clavelin).A bottle from Muscadet: (a muscadet).Bottles from Gaillac: (some gaillacoises).Bottles of Vinho Verde in plastic (of garrafões).Bottles from Franconia: (a Bocksbeutel).A fine bottle of ice wine.A Verdejo from Rueda.Glass of catavino (Sherry).Chardonnay.Glass of Tokaji.Aged white wine (Madeira).White wine glasses generally are taller and thinner than red wine glasses.INAO glass of sherry amontillado.Alsatian glass: the coloured foot is not recommended to properly assess the colour of the wine.German wine glass (Römer) from the 17th century.A flûte of cava.A flûte for Sparkling wineA coupe can be used for Sparkling wine.Dramatic effect of a pyramid of coupes.Glass of Chablis with a crystalline brilliance.Comparison of colour between a South African chenin (a stellenbosch at left) and a French one (a savennières on the right).Riesling Vines in Washington, United States.Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand.Noble rot on a Riesling B grapevine.Passerillage without straining at Málaga; the drying gives a reddish-brown colour to the white grape.Passerillage without straining of grapes in Slovenia.A misty vineyard at Tokay in Slovakia.Frozen Grapes to be made into Ice wine.Cellar for ageing at Tokay in Slovakia.A bottle of Sauternes, a great Fortified wine.Amber colour in an old German riesling opened after 32 years in the bottle.Bottle of sparkling wine with its characteristic covering.Sparkling wine, festival wine by Peder Severin Krøyer, 1888, Gothenburg Museum of Art.Launching of the destroyer USS Wainwright in 1915.Conventional image of sparkling wines: wines of celebration (here a car racing victory).Muscat Rose grapes with small berries Rs.Bottles of Muscat de Rivesaltes AOC.Nuances in the colour of marsala.Ageing of Sherry in solera.Bresse Chicken with morels and Yellow wineFoie gras and fortified wineYellow wine, Comté cheese, and nutsEven on the go...Baeckeoffe cooked in white wine.Mussels in white wine and chips.Chicken marsala.Aveyron tripe.Risotto with Prawns.Alsatian sauerkraut.Swiss Cheese Fondue.Osso bucco.Tacuinum Sanitatis, 14th century.Pieter Claesz, Still life with a glass of roemer, 1645.Pieter de Hooch, Wife and Husband toasting, 1658.Jacob Jordaens, The King drinks, 17th century.Simon Luttichuys and Cornelis de Heem, Still life, 17th century.Nicolas Lancret, Lunch of Ham, 1735.Peder Severin Krøyer, Hip hip hurra! - Festival of Painters at Skagen, 1888.Joseph Faverot, The Drunken buffoon, 1894.The comic artist also used white wine in his illustrations.German Caricature of 1849.Advertising in the Belle Époque.Advertising in 1901. White wine is a wine that is fermented without skin contact. The colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-coloured pulp of grapes, which may have a skin of any colour. White wine has existed for at least 2500 years. The wide variety of white wines comes from the large number of varieties, methods of winemaking, and ratios of residual sugar. White wine is mainly from 'white' grapes, which are green or yellow in colour, such as the Chardonnay, Sauvignon, and Riesling. Some white wine is also made from grapes with coloured skin, provided that the obtained wort is not stained. Pinot noir, for example, is commonly used to produce champagne. Among the many types of white wine, dry white wine is the most common. More or less aromatic and tangy, it is derived from the complete fermentation of the wort. Sweet wines, on the other hand, are produced by interrupting the fermentation before all the grape sugars are converted into alcohol; this is called Mutage or fortification. The methods of enriching wort with sugar are multiple: on-ripening on the vine, passerillage (straining), or the use of noble rot. Sparkling wines, which are mostly white, are wines where the carbon dioxide from the fermentation is kept dissolved in the wine and becomes gas when the bottle is opened. White wines are often used as an apéritif before a meal, with dessert, or as a refreshing drink between meals. White wines are often considered more refreshing, and lighter in both style and taste than the majority of their red wine counterparts. In addition, due to their acidity, aroma, and ability to soften meat and deglaze cooking juices, white wines are often used in cooking. The first trace of wine that has been found dates to 7500 years ago, in present-day Iran but the results of archaeological excavations have not been able to determine from which time wine began to be produced. Epigraphy tells us about the presence of wine in the Middle East: it was produced in the 'High Country' (the mountain borders between Anatolia and Armenia) and then imported into Mesopotamia especially from the 3rd millennium BC. The tablets of Hattusa describes wine with the term wiyana in the Hittite language, GEŠTIN in Sumerian, and karânu in Akkadian. It could be red (SA5 GEŠTIN), light (or maybe white: KÙ.BABBAR GEŠTIN), good wine (DUG.GA GEŠTIN), honeyed (LÀL GEŠTIN) new (GIBIL), or sour (GEŠTIN EMSA). In Ancient Greece wine had already been developed and used since Hippocrates, a physician born around 460 BC who commonly prescribed it to patients. 'Vinous white wine' and 'bitter white wine' were used among his remedies – a sign of diversity in production at that time. In Roman times the type of viticulture practiced by the Greeks was their model for a long time and production included white wine. Rich Roman patricians organized banquets where the cost of the food was a sign of prestige. In the range of expensive products wine played a predominant role. The richest citizens built sumptuous villas in the Bay of Naples where the vine had been cultivated since its introduction by the Greeks. The aminum or ancient grape produced a sweet white wine produced as mulled wine resembling modern-day Madeira. The conquering of regions more and more to the north encouraged the Romans to cultivate the vine and to produce lighter and less sweet wines. It also encouraged them to seek new wild varieties adaptable to these distant areas where the Mediterranean varieties showed their limits. For example, vines were planted on the banks of the Rhine to provide the Legions with a healthy drink as opposed to water which was rarely drinkable. The wine was drunk cool in summer and warm in winter a practice which still continues in the 21st century. Wine merchants failed to survive the fall of the Western Roman Empire and viticulture declined dramatically. The Germanic tribes preferred to drink beer and did not see the value of the wine trade. The decline of viticulture was intensified when Vikings cut the sea lanes in the Atlantic. In the south the Saracens were making Ghazw or raids. These campaigns in southern Europe caused Languedoc, Provence, Southern Italy, and the Douro Valley to become depopulated – the people being taken into slavery or fleeing the threat. Knowledge about the culture of grapevines was conserved by the Catholic Church: wine was necessary for the celebration of Mass and the monks planted vines at high latitudes and increased the monastic acreages. Difficult to transport and store, wine long remained a product for local consumption. The trade was re-established initially after the enrichment of the nobles and prelates because, as with the Romans, the art of the table reflected the reputation of the host.