Types of Wine: A Simple Guide to Every Main Style

There are six main types of wine: red, white, rosé, sparkling, dessert and fortified. Red and white make up most of what you will see in a store, and each runs from light and crisp to full and rich. Rosé sits between them, sparkling wine adds bubbles, and dessert and fortified wines are the sweet, strong end of the shelf. If you are new to wine, learning these six groups and the idea of “body” is enough to pick a bottle with confidence.

The six types at a glance

Type	How it’s made	Familiar examples	Serve at
Red	Still wine from dark-skinned grapes; color, flavor and tannin come from the skins	Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon	53–69°F, lighter reds cooler
White	Still wine made mostly from white grapes, sometimes from dark ones	Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay	44–57°F
Rosé	Dark grapes with brief skin contact, so the color stays pale	Provence rosé, Garnacha rosé, White Zinfandel	53–63°F
Sparkling	A second fermentation traps carbon dioxide as bubbles	Champagne, Cava, Prosecco	38–48°F
Dessert	Fermentation stopped early, or sugar from dehydrated grapes	Late harvest wines, Sauternes, Tokaj	Varies
Fortified	Grape brandy added to the wine	Port, Sherry, Madeira	Varies

The serving temperatures are Wine Folly’s ranges for its nine wine styles. Wine Folly’s own overview of wine types counts five groups rather than six, because it files fortified wines under dessert wine. We split them here because fortified wine is not always sweet: a dry Sherry is fortified but not a dessert wine in the everyday sense.

Wine body chart: from light to full

Body is how heavy a wine feels in your mouth, a bit like the difference between skim milk and whole milk. Alcohol, sugar, oak aging and grape skins all add weight. Wine Folly notes that wines with 14% alcohol or more feel richer, and that darker reds tend to be bolder because so much flavor comes from the skins.

Wine Folly sorts wine into nine styles. Here they are in our rough order from lightest to richest, with the grapes Wine Folly lists for each:

Style	Examples	Food that works
Sparkling	Champagne, Cava, Prosecco, Sekt, Lambrusco	Fries, oysters, salads, fish tacos, salty snacks
Light dry white	Albariño, Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Vermentino, unoaked Chardonnay	Seafood, sushi, green salads, pesto, fried food
Aromatic white	Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Moscato, Chenin Blanc, Torrontés	Indian and Thai food, pungent cheese
Full white	Oaked Chardonnay, Viognier, Sémillon, Marsanne	Crab, lobster, cream pasta, roast chicken
Rosé	Provence rosé, Côtes du Rhône rosé, Garnacha, Sangiovese and Pinot Noir rosé	Fried chicken, roast pork, Mexican, Greek and Turkish dishes
Light red	Pinot Noir, Gamay, Cinsault, Schiava	Mushroom risotto, coq au vin, chicken and other poultry
Medium red	Merlot, Sangiovese, Grenache, Barbera, Cabernet Franc	Lasagna, pizza, burgers, roasted meats
Full red	Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec, Tempranillo, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah	Barbecue, steak, smoked meats, Mexican food
Dessert and fortified	Port, Sherry, Madeira, late harvest and noble rot wines	Blue cheese, caramel, cake, chocolate, fruit pie

Treat the chart as a guide, not a rule. Climate and winemaking can push a grape up or down a step: a cool-climate, unoaked Chardonnay is far lighter than a warm-climate, barrel-aged one. In our view, the most useful habit for a new wine drinker is to match weight with weight: light food with light wine, rich food with full wine.

Red wine

Red wine is still (not sparkling) wine made from dark-skinned grapes, which Wine Folly describes as ranging from light to bold. The skins give red wine its color and its tannin, the drying, grippy feel you notice on your gums after a sip of strong black tea.

• Light reds such as Pinot Noir and Gamay are delicate and perfumed, with lighter tannin, bright acidity and red-fruit flavors. Wine Folly suggests serving them at a cool room temperature, 53–63°F.
• Medium reds such as Merlot, Sangiovese and Grenache are the middle-weight, food-friendly group.
• Full reds such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Malbec are higher in tannin and alcohol, with dark-fruit flavors such as black currant.

Most quality red wine is dry, meaning not sweet, but sweet reds exist too, from Brachetto to Port.

White wine

White wine is still wine made mainly from white grapes, though Wine Folly notes it is sometimes made from dark ones. Whites fall into three broad groups:

• Light dry whites: zesty and crisp, best drunk within a year or two of the vintage. Wine Folly calls this group often the best value.
• Aromatic whites: strongly perfumed and often made with a little leftover grape sugar. Wine Folly stresses that sweetness here is a winemaking choice, not a trait of the grape: Riesling and Chenin Blanc come in both dry and sweet versions.
• Full whites: rich and bold, often aged in oak for vanilla or coconut notes, with a creamier texture from a winemaking step called malolactic fermentation.

See our guide to the types of white wine for a grape-by-grape chart.

Rosé wine

Rosé is pink wine, made mostly from dark grapes whose skins are removed early. Wine Folly describes three methods:

• Maceration, the most common: the crushed red grapes sit in their juice for a short time, usually 2 to 24 hours, before the juice is fermented.
• Saignée (“bled”): some juice is drawn off a tank of red wine early on and fermented separately as rosé.
• Blending: a small amount of red wine, usually no more than 5%, is mixed into white. Wine Folly says this is uncommon for still rosé but traditional for sparkling rosé, especially Champagne.

Rosé tends to behave like a white wine at the table, and many are dry. Sweeter pink wines such as White Zinfandel are the exception.

Sparkling wine

Sparkling wine gets its bubbles from a second fermentation. In Champagne, a mix of sugar and yeast called the liqueur de tirage is added to a dry base wine, which then ferments again inside the bottle. Prosecco and Lambrusco do their second fermentation in pressurized tanks. Sparkling wine can be white, rosé or red, and it runs from dry and lean to sweet and rich.

US labels draw a line here. Under federal rules (27 CFR 4.21), sparkling wine must get its bubbles solely from fermentation, while wine with added carbon dioxide has to be labeled carbonated wine. Wine Folly suggests serving sparkling wine ice cold, 38–48°F.

Tip: Sparkling wine is one of the most food-friendly types there is. Its acidity and bubbles cut through salty, fried food, which is why fries and fried chicken show up on Wine Folly’s pairing list.

Dessert wine

Dessert wines are sweet wines served in small pours, about 2 to 3 ounces, according to Wine Folly (a serving size; the NIAAA standard drink for fortified wine is 3 to 4 ounces). There are two main routes to the sugar:

• Stopping fermentation early, so some of the grapes’ natural sugar is never turned into alcohol.
• Using dehydrated grapes, whose sugar is concentrated before fermentation. Wine Folly lists late harvest wines and noble rot wines, such as Sauternes and Tokaj, in this group.

We’d serve dessert wine with something a little less sweet than the wine itself, such as blue cheese or a fruit tart, so the wine doesn’t taste flat.

Fortified wine

Fortified wine has grape brandy added to it. Wine Folly puts most fortified wines at 17% to 20% alcohol and names Port, Sherry and Madeira as the classic examples. Most are sweet, but not all: Wine Folly singles out dry Sherry as a fortified wine without the sugar.

On a US label, alcohol decides the class. Federal rules define table wine as wine with no more than 14% alcohol by volume, and dessert wine as wine above 14% and up to 24%. So a dry Sherry still counts as a “dessert wine” for labeling purposes. Our guide to fortified wine walks through each style.

Orange wine: the seventh type

Orange wine is white wine made like a red: the juice stays in contact with the grape skins, and sometimes the seeds, during fermentation. Wine Folly says that gives it tannin and texture, so it can taste more like a light red than a typical white. It is usually dry, often amber or copper in color, and is sometimes sold as “amber wine”. Federal labeling rules list “amber wine” as one of the allowed color terms, alongside red, white and pink (or rosé).

How to choose a type

If you like…	Try this type	Starting bottle
Lemonade, crisp apples	Light dry white	Pinot Grigio or Albariño
Something floral and a touch sweet	Aromatic white	Off-dry Riesling or Moscato
Buttery, creamy flavors	Full white	Oaked Chardonnay
Cold black tea, cherries	Light red	Pinot Noir
Bold coffee, dark chocolate	Full red	Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec
Celebrations and salty snacks	Sparkling	Prosecco or Cava
After-dinner sipping	Fortified	Ruby Port

Our pick for a first bottle is a light dry white or a rosé: Wine Folly puts good examples at roughly $10 to $17, and both are easy to chill and forgiving with food. If you already know you like red, we’d start in the middle with a Merlot or Sangiovese before working up to the big Cabernets.

How to serve each type

Serving temperature changes how a wine comes across, so it is worth a minute’s thought. Wine Folly’s nine-style ranges boil down to this:

Type	Temperature	Rough guide
Sparkling	38–48°F	Straight from the fridge
White wines	44–57°F	Fridge, then a few minutes on the table
Rosé and light reds	53–63°F	20–30 minutes in the fridge
Medium and full reds	63–69°F	Cool room temperature

In our view, most people serve whites too cold and reds too warm. If a red has been sitting in a warm kitchen, 15 minutes in the fridge helps.