Red wine gets its colour from the skins. That is the whole trick. Crush red grapes, leave the juice sitting on the skins while it ferments, and the colour, the tannin and most of the flavour come across. Take the skins out early and you get a rosé. Never put them in and you get a white, even from red grapes.
Everything below follows from that one thing.
Tannin, in plain words
Tannin is what makes your mouth feel dry after a mouthful of red. It comes from the skins, the seeds and the stems, and from oak barrels if the wine spent time in one.
You feel it on your gums and the inside of your cheeks rather than taste it. A wine with a lot of it feels firm and gripping. A wine with a little feels soft and round.
Tannin also softens with age. That is why a big red can be worth keeping and a light one usually is not.
Body, in plain words
Body is how heavy the wine feels in your mouth. Alcohol, tannin and texture all add to it.
A light red feels like it passes through. A full one coats and stays. Neither is better. They are for different evenings and different food.
The grape decides most of it
You will know the international names. Cabernet Sauvignon is dark and structured. Merlot is softer and rounder. Pinot Noir is light and perfumed. Syrah, or Shiraz, is peppery and dark.
Two more are worth knowing, and they are the ones we sell.
Vranec. The name means black stallion, and the wine drinks like it. Blackberry and black cherry, firm tannin, a long finish. It is the backbone of Macedonian red wine.
Kratošija. Lighter and friendlier. Redcurrant, cherry, brambly fruit, a little warm spice. An everyday red in the best sense.
Grown side by side in the same vineyard and picked together, those two make a field blend, which is how our Barovo Red is made.
How to serve it
Cool, not cold. Room temperature meant something different in a house without central heating. Around 16 to 18 degrees suits a full red, a little cooler for a light one. Twenty minutes in the fridge does it in summer.
Use a big glass. Not for show. A wide bowl gives the wine air and the aromas somewhere to gather.
Decant the big ones. Pouring a young, tannic red into a jug half an hour before dinner softens it noticeably. A light red does not need it.
What to eat with it
Match the weight, not the colour. A big red wants food with some char and fat on it: grilled meat, roast lamb, aged cheese. A light red suits roast chicken, tomato sauces, cured meat, and most of what gets eaten on a Tuesday.
Our longer guide goes further: pairing our wines with international flavours.
Four of our reds, and what each one is for
We are a London company. We do not make these wines. We buy them direct from Tikveš, who have made wine in the Tikveš valley since 1885, and we check the vintage on every bottle when it lands.
Kratošija. The easy one. Fresh red fruit, gentle spice, nothing to work out. Roast meats, moussaka, an ordinary evening.
T'ga za Jug. Soft and warming, with a touch of sweetness from late-picked fruit grown at altitude. It is named after a poem, Konstantin Miladinov's longing for the south, and it was created in 1973 for the Struga Poetry Evenings. Few wines can say that.
Vranec Luda Mara. Dark and spicy with proper grip. Hand-picked into chilled crates, fermented in concrete, rested a year before release. Open it when the grill is going.
Barovo Red. Our flagship. A field blend of Kratošija and Vranec from parcels climbing to 700 metres at the foot of the Kozuf mountains, then eighteen months in new French oak. It has the structure to keep for years. Give it a big glass and some air.
There is also Alexandria Premium Cuvée Red, which is the softest way into our reds, and the rest sit together on the reds page.
Start with whichever sentence above sounded like your kind of evening. That is a better guide than any score.