Colour and Complexity

On an impromptu week dinner at our local restaurant recently, the French chef joined me for a glass of wine after the kitchen closed and cried: “I don’t know why so many believe that the darker the colour, the better the wine is.  I really don’t know”. Then, he poured me another glass of Domaine de la Tournelle ‘Uva Arbosiana’ 2010 made from the Jura varietal Ploussard.  Domaine de la Tournells’s Ploussard is almost rosé.  The wine has almost no colour and full of complexity. Pictured above is Evelyne and Pascal Clairet of Domaine de la Tournelle in Arbois Jura during my last visit.

The chef’s comments are understandable.  Often some wine critics describe the colour as though it is a sign of importance.  “Dark as moonless night” or “stains the glass”. There are so many additives in wines now that one really has to know the producer to ensure the colour is natural.  One drop of this additive can change the intensity of colour.

When I am with a vigneron in his or her cellar tasting, the wines are presented in the order of increasing complexity, and not in the increasing shades of colour.  The same can be said of body. Colour and body are not indicators of complexity.

If you are in Burgundy with a great producer in the cellar, the shade of colour and body are least important in wine.  If you hear someone describing a bottle of ‘Les Amoureuse’ as dark as moonless night, I would like to suggest you hold close your wallet tightly.   And in Jura, the vignerons will pour reds before whites because the whites are more complex.  Wine, like us, the colour is least important.