It is commonly known that red wines age best. But why, you may ask, is that? Why can red wine be aged longer than whites?  After all, they are both made from the juice of grapes!

The answer has a lot to do with tannins and acidity, but residual sugar and alcohol levels can also play a role.

Tannins are chemical compounds that act as natural preservatives in wine. They come from the skins, seeds and stems of grapes. And, red wines spend considerable time in contact with their skins, seeds and stems during the maceration process as opposed to white wines where the juice is immediately removed from the skins, seeds and stems.

The maceration process for red wines involves steeping the grape skins and solids in the grape’s juice (must) during fermentation, when the developing alcohol acts as a solvent to extract color, tannins and aroma from the skins. Red wines typically will have maceration times ranging from 7 to 40 days. Tannins in wine also come from the wood barrels where the wines are aged. 

The natural acid levels and residual sugar that remains in wine after fermentation can act to preserve the wine. And, wines that are higher in alcohol generally are more likely to age well. Especially fortified wines (e.g., Port, Sherry, Brandy).

But, the bottom line on a wine being age-worthy is that it needs to be “well balanced” to begin. That is, having a balance between tannin, acid, alcohol and residual sugar. If any of these are ‘off’ the wine probably doesn’t stand a chance of improving with age.

But that leads to the question “When I’m staring at bottles of wine on the store shelf, how do I know if a wine is well balanced?” We’ll get to that next time. Cheers!