White wines

White wine is a wine whose color can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold coloured.

It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-colored pulp of grapes which may have a white or black skin. It is treated so as to maintain a yellow transparent color in the final product. The wide variety of white wines comes from the large number of varieties, methods of winemaking, and also the ratio of residual sugar.

White wine has existed for at least 2500 years. It has accompanied economic development and colonized every country whose inhabitants are wine drinkers: Europe, America, Oceania, although less systematically in Africa and Asia due to climate and religious reasons.

The white grapes from which white wine is mainly produced are green or yellow of which there are many so that white wine can be produced anywhere that grapes can be grown. Some varieties are well-known such as the Chardonnay, Sauvignon, and Riesling. Others have a discreet existence hidden behind the name of a wine resulting from the assembly of several varieties. Tokay, Sherry, and Sauternes are examples of these. The winemaker can also use a variety with a coloured skin provided one is careful not to stain the wort during the separation of the pulp-juice. The 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, whether moelleux (Sweet: 12-45 g/l of sugar) or liquoreux (Fortified: >45 g/l sugar) wines are where the fermentation is interrupted 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 wines, are wines where the carbon dioxide from the fermentation is kept dissolved in the wine and becomes gas when the bottle is opened giving a delicate foam beverage considered the festive wine par excellence.

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Wikipedia