Color of 33 commercial red wines and five-color reference wines was measured in the same conditions in which visual color assessment is done by wine tasters. Measurements were performed in the two distinctive regions. center and rim, which are the regions assessed by wine tasters when the wine sampler is fitted. Commercial wines were classified into five color categories using the color specifications in their taste cards. The five color categories describe the spread of red lilies found in red wines from the violet to brown nuances. The performance of CIELAB color coordinates in terms of their ability to reproduce the observed classification has been established using discriminant analysis. The CIELAB hue angle, h(ab), measured in the rim, where wine thickness is of the order of few millimeters, gives the best results classifying correctly 71.1% of the samples. Classification results are not significantly improved when additional color coordinates are considered. Moreover, triangle E* color differences with color reference wines do not provide good classification results. The analysis of reference and commercial wines supports the fact that hue is the main factor in the classification done by wine tasters. This is reinforced by the linear correlation found between h,l, it? the rim and the wine age (R-2 = 0.795) in accordance with the fact that wines change their lilies from violet to brown tints with ageing. (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 34, 153-162, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20475