HISTORY :

Since Antiquity, the man pressed the grapes to obtain the juice. The natural fermentation, due to the action of present yeasts in the must, (juice not fermented) transformed sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The gas escapes from itself,and the alcoholic juice remained . The wine had been born. With the passing of time, a multitude of interventions, according to various techniques', allowed to obtain different results. Today, there is a great number of processes of wine making, which make it possible, in the broad outline, to make the first classification of the wines by their color: white, white of white, gray, rosy, red, yellow, etc...

THE COLOR OF THE WINES:
White wines : come from white grapes or red grapes with white juice. Must is immediately separated from the elements of pigmentation (skins, etc...), to avoid colouring by maceration. By letting fermentation process all sugars, one obtains a dry white. By stopping fermentation to keep sugar, one obtains a soft white.
White wines of white: come from white grapes exclusively. The white of the most known white are the Champagnes, produced by Chardonnay, which also gives the white Burgundies. In Alsace, white Pinot, very near to Chardonnay, produces the wines of late vintage.

Gray or pale wines:
come from black grapes with white juice. These wines result from a very short maceration and have only one weak colouring.

Rosy wines:
also come from black grapes with white juice. The maceration lasts approximately a week, until must took the dew color. The rosy wines are never obtained by a mixture of white wines and red wines (prohibited by the law). Only, the Champagne vine growers have the right to make this mixture to obtain rosy Champagne. In the majority of the cases, it acts of % of Bouzy (red Champagne wine) with the white wine.

Red wines :
come from red grapes. The maceration lasts the time of fermentation, approximately 4 weeks. All sugars are tranformed.

Natural soft wines:
red wines or white which one stopped their fermentation and in which one added alcohol (approximately 10%). These wines keep sugar.

Liquour wines:
red wines obtained by addition of alcohol 15%, or +, before or during fermentation. These wines keep much sugar (Ratafia, Pineau).

Yellow wines:
after fermentation, the white wines are kept out of barrels during several years (up to 10 years). The yeasts form a species of skin which colours the wine. To keep it in barrels still accentuates this colouring. After filtering, these wines keep a particular taste (yellow Wines of the Jura

Wines of late grape harvest:
come from white grapes. The grapes in maturation on foot are attacked by a tiny mushroom called noble rot (Botrytis cinerea), which perforates the skin of the grape, allowing the evaporation of water. The grape fades and keeps a very concentrated, very soft and very fruity juice. These wines are rare, because one needs much more grapes to obtain the same quantity of wine. Moreover, this harvest requires particular climatic conditions, the ideal being the fog the morning and the sun in the afternoon. The late grape harvest is done during the winter, sometimes in snow, and requires several passages of harvest, bunch by bunch, according to maturation of the grape. A length and meticulous work of separation of the grains, one by one, start. These wines are in Alsace and in the Bordeaux area (Sauternes).

Wines of straw::
come from white grapes. Fermentation occurs whereas the grape dries on the straw. It fades and loses its water and its gas. It results in a sweetened and very alcoholic wine. As for the wines of late vintage, the production is very limited. (Wines of the Jura)

CATEGORIES OF THE WINES OF FRANCE

Classification of the wines In France