Wine basics in twenty minutes

Every bottle in a wine shop is one of five types: red, white, rosé, sparkling or sweet. Once you know what makes each one different, the shelves stop being a wall of bottles.

The surprise is that grape juice is nearly clear, even from dark grapes. Colour comes from the skins. Leave dark skins soaking in the juice for a week or two and you get red wine. Press the juice off the skins straight away and you get white. Leave the dark skins in for just a few hours and you get pink: rosé. Rosé is usually not a mix of red and white, though pink Champagne is a famous exception.

Skins also carry tannin, the thing that makes strong tea feel dry in your mouth. That is why a young red can feel grippy and a white almost never does.

Sparkling wine is any wine with bubbles. The fizz is carbon dioxide trapped from a second fermentation. In Champagne that second fermentation happens inside the very bottle you buy, which takes well over a year and is one reason it costs more. Brut on the label means dry.

Sweet wine keeps some natural grape sugar, either because the grapes were picked very ripe, sometimes shrivelled on the vine, or because the fermentation was stopped early. It is served cold in small glasses and is lovely with cheese or dessert.

Within each type there is a big range. Reds run from light and fruity, like Pinot Noir, to dark and powerful, like Cabernet Sauvignon. Whites run from sharp and light, like Riesling, to rich and round, like oaked Chardonnay.

Remember Red, white, rosé, sparkling and sweet: colour and tannin come from how long the juice spends with the skins.

Tasting wine properly takes about a minute and needs no special words. Fill the glass about a third full so there is room to move the wine around.

Look. Tilt the glass over something white. A pale red is usually lighter in taste and a dark one fuller. A white that is deep gold is often older, sweeter or aged in oak.

Swirl. Keep the base of the glass on the table and draw small circles. Swirling mixes in air and lifts the smells out of the wine. That is the only reason people do it.

Sniff. Put your nose right into the glass and take a short sniff. Most of what we call taste is really smell. Ask one simple question: fruit, flowers, spice, or something earthy? Smells of vanilla, toast or coconut usually come from oak barrels, not the grape.

Sip. Let the wine sit on your tongue for a second or two and notice four things. Sweetness: is there any sugar, or is it dry? Acidity: does it make your mouth water, like lemonade? That freshness is acidity. Tannin: does it dry your gums, like strong tea? Body: does it feel light like skimmed milk, or heavy like cream?

Then comes the only question that really matters: do you like it? Nobody can answer that for you. If you remember the grape and the place of a wine you enjoyed, you already know how to find your next bottle.

Remember Look, swirl, sniff, sip, and judge four things on the tongue: sweetness, acidity, tannin and body.

A wine labelled 2020 was made from grapes picked in 2020. It may not have gone on sale until two or three years later, after ageing at the winery. That year is the vintage.

Years differ because weather differs. A warm, dry, sunny summer gives ripe, generous wines. A cool or rainy one gives lighter, sharper wines, and sometimes far fewer bottles. Frost in spring or hail in summer can wipe out much of a crop, and growers in some regions light small fires or run big fans on frosty nights to protect the young buds.

For everyday bottles the vintage hardly matters: buy the youngest and enjoy it. Vintage matters most for fine wine from places with changeable weather, such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Piedmont and Champagne. A great year there can taste better, last longer and cost more. A small harvest can push prices up too, because there are fewer bottles to share among the same buyers.

Most Champagne and other sparkling wine has no year on the label at all. It is a blend of several years, mixed so the house style tastes the same every time. The letters NV mean non-vintage. In the best years, Champagne houses may also make a vintage Champagne from that single harvest.

This is where wine basics and wine economics meet. Because every vintage is made once and never again, each year's wine is a fixed supply. That simple fact is the starting point for everything about collecting.

Remember The vintage is the harvest year; it matters most for fine wine from places with changeable weather, and NV means a blend of several years.