A rosé by any other colour

THE colour of a wine can convey a lot about its character. But colour is easy to misinterpret, and it sometimes reveals less than it seems.

This seeming paradox arises because analysing the colour of a wine requires an understanding of context and many variables. Too often, people make reflex judgments of a wine based solely on its color.

Twenty years ago, for example, the American public seemed fixated on the colour of red wines. The darker the wine, the thinking went, the denser, more powerful and more concentrated it was, and therefore the better it was presumed to be.