Red wine

Red wine is a type of wine made from dark-colored red grapes. The color of the wine be either a dark violet, usually seen in young wines, through to brick red for mature wines and brown for older red wines. The juice from most purple grapes is greenish-white, the red color coming from anthocyan pigments present in the skin of the grape. Much of the red wine production process involves removing of color and flavor parts from the grape skin.^[1]

A glass of red wine

The first step in red wine-making is the picking and processing of the grapes. Handpicked or machine-harvested grapes are usually tipped into a receival bin when they arrive at the winery and taken by a screw mechanism to the grape-processing equipment. The removal of leaves, stems, and other debris is typically carried out at this stage to make sure the quality of the must.^[2]

Some winemakers prefer to chill the must to around 10 °C (50 °F), to allow a period of pre-fermentation maceration ("cold soaking"), of between one and four days.

Pressing in winemaking is the process where juice is extracted from grapes. This can be done with the help of a winepress, by hand, or even by the weight of the grape berries themselves.^[3]

The antioxidants found in red wine can help lower cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease.^[4]