How to judge the quality of red wine

Although red wine now often appears on the wine tables in various occasions, there are actually very few people who can really taste red wine. Many people judge the quality of red wine by the depth of its color and the degree of depression at the bottom of the wine bottle. In fact, these have no direct relationship with the quality of the red wine. This article introduces two methods for testing the quality of red wine. The operation is relatively simple. Let’s learn them together.

1. The alkali flour method for blending wine with alkali flour is to first prepare alkali flour, white vinegar, four transparent cups, and a small spoon. Next, the experiment officially began. Four transparent cups were placed in a row. Real red wine was poured into the two cups on the left, and blended fake wine was poured into the two cups on the right. Generally, blended wine has a thin liquid with a high degree of transparency and a refreshing sweet smell; while real red wine has a slightly thicker liquid and is translucent, but has a slightly lower transparency and a slightly sour smell. Then, use a small spoon to take half a spoonful of alkaline flour, put it into one of the cups of real red wine and stir evenly. Put an equal amount of alkaline flour into another cup of blended wine and stir. After about half a minute, the contrast of the four cups changed significantly: of the two cups of real red wine, the one with the alkaline surface turned obviously blue-black, almost completely black, and the light transmittance of the wine was almost zero, and it was no longer transparent even when facing the sunlight, forming a very clear difference from the cup without the alkaline surface; and of the two cups of blended wine, the one with the alkaline surface did not change at all, and its color and transparency were exactly the same as the one without the alkaline surface. After testing with white vinegar, the true identity was confirmed. Half a spoonful of alkaline noodles can expose the fake wine. The process is truly amazing. But the experiment is not over yet. Alkali only exposes the fake wine. To finally determine the identity of the real wine, another protagonist needs to appear, that is white vinegar.

2. Paper Towel Method: What should you do if you order wine in a hotel and don’t have any alkaline noodles on hand? There is also a simpler method - the "paper towel test method" can identify the authenticity of wine. Take a piece of high-quality paper towel and drop wine on it. Since the red color in the original wine is a natural pigment with very small particles, the wet mark spread on the paper towel is a uniform red color of the wine, without obvious water mark spreading. Since fake wine is blended with chemical synthetic pigments such as amaranth, the pigment particles are large and will settle in the middle of the napkin, while the water marks continue to spread outward. There is a clear boundary between the red area and the water marks, which makes it easy to distinguish real wine from fake wine. Although this detection method is simple and easy, it also needs to be judged based on the quality of the paper towel. The texture of the paper towel also has a certain impact on the diffusion of the liquid.