The importance of a wine's color

James -

Thanks for taking the time.

You write often about a wine’s color. In your tasting note for the 2006 Fontodi Flacciannello, which you gave 99 points, your first comment was about color. You wrote, “Shows excellent color… for a Sangiovese.”

I wonder several things.

  1. What did you mean by "excellent color for a Sangiovese? The note implies that Sangiovese tends to be light, and this wine was dark. If that’s accurate, why is dark “excellent”?

  2. If the color was dark, how did this producer achieve that color?

  3. Why do you write about color, which is rather easily manipulated?

Cheers and thanks, and best of luck with 1W1W.

Good color for Sangiovese is not super dark but it should be ruby red. Fontodi works with low grape yields in its Flaccianello vineyard. And it macerates well after the alcoholic fermentation to extract color, good tannins and flavor components. I don’t think that is manipulation.