The visual contact is the very first we have with the wine. It enables to apreciate:

The limpidity

We thus observe the presence or the absence of particles, veils, likely to make the wine more or less turbid, by bringing the wine in the face of a luminous ray which has to go through the wine.

The brightness or the wine brilliance

This is the wine property of sending back the light : it can be seen on the upper disk, to the day light and on a white background.

The colour

It can be apreciated depending on two criteria : the intensity and the tint. The intensity correspond to the richness of the coloured pigments. The tint can be divided into two : the main tint and the shade ( the glint). The colour observation can be a quality criterion, in any cases it often reveals the degree of development of a wine.

Note : it is quite difficult to find a good “fixed” visual support that fits the colour range of the wines more particulaly for the red wines. In the visual appreciation that we make, the notion of intensity (linked to the wine strengh) and shade play a part, both of them being difficult to copy.