What is Wine? What is the Relationship Between Red Wine and Wine?

Mention red wine, there are always people who think it is imported, but when and where does wine originate?  I am afraid there are very few who know.  In fact, for those who are new to entry, there are still many things they may not understand.  So, what exactly is wine?  What is the relationship between red wine and wine?  What are the differences between red wine, white wine and pink wine?  This series of questions may seem simple, but can you answer them?


What is Wine? What is the Relationship Between Red Wine and Wine

1. When and where did wine originate?

Wine is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages in the world. Scientists have been exploring tirelessly about its origin.  In fact, it is difficult to find clues about winemaking. After all, the existence of grape seeds, grape skins and stems is not the same as the existence of wine.  With the unanimous efforts of archaeologists, although there are new discoveries constantly, the origin of wine is a very difficult thing to determine, even the evidence of new discoveries may be overturned by subsequent discoveries.


For now, the earliest record of winemaking dates back to 9,000 BC in China.  Are you surprised?  In other words, wine is most likely not imported.  Prior to this, it was widely believed that wine originated in Europe and even Central West Asia, and the discovery of the Jiahu site in Henan changed this prejudice.  After a long and numerous study, the scientists finally determined that the sediment on the inner wall of the pottery unearthed from the Jiahu site contained tartaric acid as well as rice, honey, hawthorn and grapes.  Combined with other traces of winemaking, scientists believe that in the early Neolithic period, the people of Jiahu had already begun to brew and drink fermented wine.


What is Wine? What is the Relationship Between Red Wine and Wine2

The evidence indicates that the age is 1,000 years earlier than the previous discovery in Iran. Therefore, the important site of the early Neolithic period of Jiahu Lake is the world's earliest winery, and it is also the area where the first physical information related to wine is found in the world.


2. What is wine?


When faced with this problem, I believe you will definitely look contemptuous, who doesn't know?  Indeed, many people know what wine is, but we still need to be clear about the precise definition of wine.


According to the 1996 International Organisation of Vine and Wine, wine is an alcoholic beverage made from fully or partially alcoholic fermentation of fresh or broken grape fruit or juice, usually with an alcohol content  The range is between 8.5% -16.2%.  Of course, depending on specific factors such as climate, soil conditions, grape varieties, and traditions of the producing area, the alcohol content of some wines may be less than 7%.


According to the Chinese National Wine Standard GB15037-2006, wine is made from fresh grapes or grape juice as raw materials, fermented after all or part of fermentation, and contains a certain degree of alcoholic fermented wine.


In addition, the definition in the book "The Oxford Companion to Wine" written by the international wine master Jancis Robinson is very simple. Wine is a kind of alcohol fermented from grape juice  Drink.


It can be seen that the above definitions do not limit the types of grapes, but generally speaking, wine is generally made from wine grapes, and table grapes are less used to make wine.

3. What is the relationship between red wine and wine?


In fact, many laymen are unclear about the relationship between red wine and wine.  Usually, when I tell people that I am in the wine industry, they ask me the first sentence is whether red wine is the wine you said?  In this case, if I say that I am engaged in the wine industry, then basically the same as the previous statement, that is, red wine = wine.


In fact, wine can be said to be an academic name, and red wine is a general term for wine.  The reason why Chinese people equate red wine with wine is that for a long time, the domestic market has been dominated by dry red consumption, so that people generally think that wine is red, so there is red wine  Say it.


However, there is another situation!  For example, we often say "red wine with red meat, white wine with white meat", this time red wine is specifically red wine.  This is because the four words of red wine are too long, so people prefer to call it red wine for short.  Of course, you can usually judge which kind of situation is based on the context, so next time, don't be able to distinguish between red wine and wine!


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In fact, if the wine is classified into three categories according to color, red wine, white wine and pink wine (as shown in the figure), what is the difference between the three?


4. What is the difference between red, white and pink wine?


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There are many different ways to classify wine, the most common of which is the classification based on color, which can generally be divided into red wine, white wine and pink wine.  The difference between the three is mainly shown in the figure above.