THAT Chardonnay you鈥檙e drinking is more of a red wine than it looks. It turns out that white grapes also contain the pigments that give red wine its colour 鈥� anthocyanins.
Most sources say that 鈥渨hat distinguishes red from white is that white wine grapes don鈥檛 have anthocyanins,鈥� says of Italy鈥檚 Edmund Mach Foundation. His team used mass spectrometry to analyse the skins of grapes from Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling grapes, which are used in the production of white wine. They found these white grapes did contain anthocyanins, although in concentrations several thousand times smaller than in red grape varieties such as Merlot (Food Research International, ).
Arapitsas says this shines light on one of wine-making鈥檚 oldest curiosities 鈥� why white-wine producers occasionally end up with a wine that is a bit pink. 鈥淪ometimes there were producers of white wines who collected white grapes and ended up with a slightly ros茅 wine,鈥� he says. 鈥淣ow they have some information about why that happened.鈥�
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