…they want you to try something different. Sommeliers wish you to try unknown-to-you wines or ones you’ve only heard of to expand your wine horizon. Therefore, I introduce a delicious type of wine that can appeal to the entire span of red, white, and rosé lovers. I recommend you try an Orange Wine, also known as Skin Contact Wine. If you already know of it, your hip, but continue to read on, maybe you’ll pick up a tidbit of info to share with your hip friends.
Orange wine is beautiful in the glass and has a color that attracts the eye and intrigues the palate. Upon tasting, you’ll find the familiar and the pleasantly different. Familiar because Orange Wine is white wine…but with an attitude.
The pleasant difference is the racy, saucier version of the same wines you know and drink. This is created by a wine-making method is used that’s typically reserved for reds, the technique of soaking fresh crushed grape skins and juice together for some time before fermentation to extract color, flavor, and tannin. It’s like marinating a good piece of beef in spices, oil, and wine before oven-roasting it.
This soaking, called maceration, imparts unique coppery-orange color, aromas, and body to white wines like Muscat, Viognier, Pinot Grigio, and Sauvignon Blanc.
by CONVERSUM
The technique of making Orange Wine is not new, and recently there has been a renewed interest in producing these intriguing wines. The people of Georgia (near Turkey) were fermenting orange wines centuries ago in huge underground earthenware vats called Qvevri (“Kev-ree”) sealed with stone and beeswax. Today, Georgia produces small amounts of orange wine with indigenous grapes, such as the ancient Rkatsiteli, grown in the eastern USA with success. Other regions producing Orange Wine are the always-wine-progressive Australians, the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Northeast Italy, and across the Italian border in Slovenia.
In preparation for this article, I pulled a King Family Vineyards Orange Viognier out of the cellar. The vineyard is located in Crozet, Virginia, USA, and is part of the Monticello AVA, where many fine Virginia wines originate. FYI, the Monticello AVA is on the same latitude as Napa and Sonoma AVAs; there’s a factoid for your hip friends. King’s French winemaker Matthieu Finot produces a Small Batch Series of delicious specialty wines; their Orange Viognier is just one. Finot recommends serving his Orange Viognier at around 60 degrees F cellar temperature. Light whites and rosés are usually best between 45-50 F, and heaver whites in the middle to high end, 50-55 degrees F.
At the recommended 60 F, the flavors ooze out of the glass, like rich peach cobbler, dried apricots, honey, and potpourri. The wine has more weight than a white being a little grippy, and finishes with a hint of bitterness in a good way. The grippy feeling is from the white grape skins and juice soaking together, adding tannins to the wine. This is the same feeling you get when sipping tannic Earl Gray tea.
by Harry of worldofvino.com
Winemaker Finot uses open-top oak wine barrels called puncheons and daily “punch-downs” (a method of stirring and controlling the mix of skins and wine) for weeks until the final grape pressing and fermentation. The wine then undergoes Malolactic Fermentation (MLF), which adds even more complexity, and finally, the wine is aged in neutral oak barrels. FYI, the 2016 vintage of this wine was rated highly by Wine Enthusiast; you can read more here: KFV 2016 Orange Viognier. This all adds to an excellent experience for Orange Wine lovers like me!
As for food pairing with Orange Wine, they pair well with strongly spiced dishes and bold flavors such as curry, Korean food, and Mediterranean cuisine since they are more aggressive than whites. They still pair well with food that typically goes with white wines, and since they sit between white and reds in character, they alone can support a multi-course meal.
Please experiment with new and different types of wine! It will make us both happy.
