White wines styles and details information

While red wines are probably more popular for wine lovers, it’s not surprising that most of them start out drinking white wine first. One big difference between red and white wine is the absence of tannin, which gives you that harsh or astingent taste when you have too much of it. That is the reason why white wine is often enjoyed chilled. There are many styles of white wines that can be made and the broad styles are mentioned here. Like red wine, there are many different types of grapes used for white wines and I will feature the most popular ones here. Included here is the popular white wines of France, Germany and Italy.

Style of White Wines

For white wines, the style is determined by three factors:

Dry or Sweet:This depends on the grape used and the fermentation process. By stopping the fermentation prematurely, some of the grape’s natural sugar remains. Alternatively, some unfermented (sweet) wine is added to the wine.


Crisp or Soft: Again depends on wine making techniques and grape used. Processes such as malolactic ferementation and lees-stiring help to reduce the acidicty of some wines.

Oaked or Unoaked: By putting the wine in oak barrels for a period of time between fermentation and bottling, the wine will be oaked.

Here are some examples of wines that are made in the different combination of styles. Again, it varies from wine-makers to wine-makers and exceptions from the below list do occur.

Crisp, Dry and unoaked wines: Italian Soave, Pinot Grigio, Frascati; Muscadet (grape); Sancerre (region), dry German Riesling (grape), Chablis (region) and inexpensive French white table wines.

Less crisp, full bodied dry, unoaked wines: Macon-Village (region), Savignon Blanc (grape), Alsace (region) wine and many inexpensive Australian and Californian wines.

Less crisp, full bodied dry and oaked wines: Better Californian and Australian Chardonnay (grape), Burgundy (region) wines, Pouilly-Fuisse (region), Rhone valley (region) and better Bordeaux whites.

Soft, fruity, sweet wines: Liebfraumilch (style), German Riesling, Gewurztraminer (grape), Vouvray (region), Muscat (grape), some Semillon (grape) and Chenin Blanc (grape).

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