Whats the difference in making red wine and white wine?

I thought it was keeping the skin on to make red wine and taking the skin off to make white. I didn't think the grape colour had any thing to to with the finished product.|||The major difference is that red wines are made from black skinned grapes and that the juice and skins are fermented together -- the red color comes from the grape skins.





You can make white wine from black grapes because the colour of the juice is clear (so you press the juice out and discard the skins before fermenting), but you cannot make red wine from white grapes.





There are are tannins and flavors in red wines (coming from the skins) so red wines are more likely to get aging in oak barrels.





To comment on some other answers:





-- ALL grapes do not have clear juice. There are a few black grapes that do have red juice. Wines made from them are very dark and are used sometimes to add in a blend to add color. These varieties are known as teinturier and Alicante Bouschet is the variety you are most likely to find on thh shelves.





-- Pinot Blanc is a white wine but it is NOT made from the red Pinot Noir. Pinot Blanc is a white skinned variety. It is one of the many mutations of Pinot Noir (as is Pinot Grigio/Gris) and is considered as a separate variety.|||its to do with the colour grapes you use and variety, not the skins|||THE COLOUR|||Just different grapes





I think rose/white zinfandel wine (the pink stuff) has something to do with the skins.... like you use white grapes with red skins.... or you use just red grapes without the skins... I dont remember rightly but I'm sure if you google it you'll get a ton of hits!





EDIT: Just found this





http://www.terroir-france.com/wine/rosew鈥?/a>





Helpful if you're interested|||different grapes make different wines. the grape color has everything to do with the finished product. in vineyards, they have separated crops of grapes, based on what kind of wine it will produce. they will have a crop of Cabernet, a crop of pinot grigio, and so on.|||The colour of the grapes decides on the colour of the wine.





The variety of the grape, the type of soil it is grown in and even the rainfall over the year constitute the differences between different types of wine of the same colour.|||You're more or less correct, but reds are made from "black" berries, and whites are made from "white" berries, as a general rule. That's not always true. Many white sparklers, including honest champagnes, use a few black grapes, as one example (and those using only "blancs" are usually so designated) . Another is the mess that occured a couple of decades ago when the bottom dropped out of the zin market at the same time as there was a white wine craze, leaving us with that "white zin" abomination that still plagues us today.|||WWD gave some good info, but I'd like to add that ALL grapes have white juice. So it's not really the grape that gives the color, but the skin. The reason white wines can be made from red grapes is because they can quickly crush the fruit and take the juice away from the skin, leaving the juice essentially colorless. While white wines are almost always made from white skinned grapes and red wines from red skinned grapes, crossovers from red to white are possible.|||the wines are made the same way. but they skins are not kept on so to speak for the reds. the color for red wine comes from the skins. and to make red wine, you keep the pressed juice and the skins together in contact with each other for a period of time to make the wine colored. the white wine, conversely is pressed and separated immediately from the skins.





all wine grapes produce clear juice. no matter the type. PInot Blanc for example is a white wine made with the red Pinot Noir grape.|||red or white grapes its that simple|||The colour of the grapes used. red grapes for red wine, white for white! Uh oh, does that mean they use red and white to make rose!!!!|||the colour stupid