Black Is The New Red (Wine)

Do those grapes look red to you?

Wine lingo can be as silly as it is pretentious. But some of the most fundamental language about wine - words we use universally and without question - are the most metaphoric. Take the terms "Red" and "White."

If you actually look at grapes and wine, you'll discover that there are literally zero "white" wines or grapes in existence in this galaxy, as there are zero "red" grapes and precious few wines that may have a tinge of redness to them.

Sure there are purples, garnets, bricks, and rubies in wine, but I challenge you to look more closely. Look deeper. I think you'll find that the wines we call "red" are actually black with some red blended in.

The grapes haven't been known for centuries as Pinot Rouge. They are Pinot Noir - Black grapes. Grenache Noir, not Grenache Rouge.

At Centralas, we've decided to abandon the strange and inaccurate misnomer "red" and call wine by its semantically more appropriate and more interestingly accurate nom de couleur: "black."

We make black wine from black grapes. Pinot Black is one of the grapes we use, Grenache Black is another grape we use (from which we make pink wine). Mourvèdre is a black as black can be.

The use of the term "white" for green and yellow and grapes and the resulting wine makes a lot more sense when you accurately call the complementary grapes & wine "black." It becomes a yin & yang symmetry.

If you choose to continue to use the term "red" you should really switch to using the color-complementary term "green" for white wine & grapes. At least one of your wine colors will be accurate.

Red & White is like apples and oranges - two dissimilar things, randomly associated.

Black & White are meant to be together, attracting opposites, a marriage of love.

Sure Pinot Noir isn't exactly black. But it definitely isn't red. If we're going to be metaphoric, why not make it interesting?

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Why Wine Is Unlike Any Other Drink: A Love Letter To Wine's Wildness