The Wine

Wine is a fermented beverage most often created from grapes. Wines are typically named after the variety of grape they are fermented from, though some are named after their origin or colour instead.

Red Wine
Usually served at room temperature, with tastes usually ranging from sweet to very dry(in rare cases)
White Wine
Usually served chilled, in a thinner glass than red wine.
Chardonnay - Produces a French white Burgundy and perhaps the most popular wine in the United States.
Chenin Blanc - The major grape planted in the French Loire valley. Often used to make a light, fruity wine.
Gewurztraminer - Has a floral bouquet and the wine itself is often drunk with spicy foods.
Riesling - This is also a floral smelling wine which is a light, fresh type. Reisling is quite often used as a dessert wine. Reisling has accents of fuel oil, lots of depth and complexity.
Sauvignon Blanc - Sometimes called Fume Blanc in California. A crisp, light wine with a "grassy" or "herbacious" characteristic.
Semillon - Semillon is one of the major varieties grown in Bordeaux. This can also have a grassy note but it can also have notes of ripe figs. Semillon can be drunk dry or sweet.
Rose Wine
In the pure sense, Rosé wine is made in the same way as red wine but with minimal, often only hours, of skin contact. An exception is pink Champagne, which is usually made by blending white wine with a small quantity of red. The best rosé wines are made from the free run juice of red grapes where the weight of the mass imparts a light colour to the juice. More commercial style rosés are made from pressing the mass but reducing the skin contact time. Known as 'rosado' in Spain, 'rosata' in Italy and 'blush' in California, these pink wines have quite a large following and no more so than in the Provence region of France and the Loire Valley. One only has to look to Portugal and the ubiquitous Mateus Rosé, which for some years was the world's largest wine export.
Many red wines, notably in cooler climates such as Germany and Alsace, rarely mature beyond a rosé colour although fermented as red wines. For a more serious rosé, try Tavel from the Rhône Valley.
Sparkling Wine
Sparkling wine is wine that contains carbon dioxide, luckily Europe, Canada, Australia and the U.S. all agree on this designation. People often refer to sparkling wine as Champagne, in reality this is a region in France that produces the famous sparkling wine, to confuse everyone New World producers often put Champagne with a geographic qualifier on their labels or use “champagne method” to describe their wine.
Fortified Wine
Fortified wine is a wine to which distilled alcohol (generally grape spirits) has been added to increase the alcohol content. This addition kills the yeast in the wine, leaving residual sugar, making most fortified wines sweeter than normal fermented wines. For this reason, they are often consumed as aperitifs or desserts. Common varieties include port, marsala, madeira, and sherry.
Source: wikibooks.org - the open-content textbooks collection