What color indicates a youthful red wine?

• A. Ruby
• B. Purple (sometimes with bluish tinges)
• C. Garnet
• D. Brown

Answer: (B)

Color can reveal a lot about a wine’s age. For red wines, a purple hue, sometimes with bluish tinges, signals youth. This live, bright color comes from the high concentration of anthocyanin pigments in recently crushed grapes; they haven’t yet polymerized or faded, so the wine looks purple-blue and vivid. As wine ages, those pigments interact and darken, shifting toward garnet, then brick, and eventually brown with oxidation. So while a bright ruby can appear in some young wines, the classic indicator of a youthful red is purple with a hint of blue.