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Well, let’s just say people have strong opinions. Opinions on orange wine are conflicting to say the least, while blue wine…. Soon, you may be sipping a glass as amber as Irn Bru, or sharing a tempting bottle of wine that’s so blue you’d be excused for mistaking it for mouth wash. Red, white and pink are no longer the only hues on the wine colour spectrum.
ORANGE WINE SKIN
The fruit is super clean, with notes of ripe apple and walnut skin-like tannins.Ģ014 Dirty & Rowdy Skin and Concrete Egg Fermented Sémillon (USA) : A little funky and smoky, this is one of the wackier oranges you'll taste, from a cool, young vineyard to keep an eye on.If you’re still on the fence about rosé, the latest wine craze – orange wine and blue wine – may be a little too much to handle. It has a strong bouquet and notes of honey, apricot and baked apple.Ģ013 Domaine Lucci Wildman Blanc (Australia) : "This is one of the coolest wines I've ever had," Tilly says, describing it as super briny, with winter citrus notes.Ģ013 Erde, Muster (Austria): Packaged in a clay bottle, this earthy, tannic sauvignon blanc has notes of citrus and herbs.Ģ013 Macari Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc SK (USA) : This one from Red Hook Winery has strong peach and nectarine notes, along with white pepper and pine resin, says Alevras.Ģ014 Mattebella Chardonnay (USA) : "This wine has beautiful intensity and concentration to it," Alevras says. This summer, think of it as a welcome way to graduate from your busy schedule of ros é all day.Ģ009 Macari Vineyard Chardonnay SK (USA): Thanks to the inclusion of the stem during fermentation, this smoky wine from Red Hook Winery is earthy and much closer to a Loire Valley Cabernet Franc than it is to a white wine.Ģ009 Ribolla Gialla Brutus (Slovenia) : If you close your eyes, this wine tastes like a light red, but after time, peppery notes give way to apricot.Ģ012 Pheasant's Tears Rkatsiteli (Georgia) : If the combination of tropical and smoky notes doesn't sound appealing, just wait until you've tried this dry, qvevri-style favorite.Ģ013 Channing Daughters Ramato (USA) : This sweet Friulian-style wine (meaning it comes from Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia region) is made with pinot grigio.
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It's also a great transition between white and red.ĭrink it with charcuterie, strong cheese and olives, as well as autumnal foods, like squash, mushrooms and roasted dishes. Orange wine "can stand in as the 'red' wine for your dinner since more guts than a regular white wine," Ascencios says. It helps, too, that skin-fermented white wine is ideal for pairing with food, thanks to its tannins and acid you'll notice more and more orange bottles on wine bar and restaurant menus, like Brooklyn's The Four Horsemen and Freek's Mill. The color might persuade drinkers to try a glass, but the complexity orange wine brings to familiar white grapes keeps them coming back.
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"People who really know nothing about wine were coming in and asking for our sparkling orange wine by the glass by name," manager Nick Tilly says. "You're not going to binge-drink a bottle of this over a Netflix marathon."īrooklyn's June Wine Bar, which updates its menu regularly, quickly realized it would need at least one glass of orange on the menu at all times. "We don't want people to think it's a just a novelty," shop foreman Colin Alevras explains. At Brooklyn's Red Hook Winery, certain blends don't even indicate that they include some "orange" or skin-fermented white wine. "There's a lot to think about, so you see people doing them on a smaller scale."ĭespite the small-scale production, the style is seriously popular. "It's like Goldilocks fruit," Tracy says.
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Skin contact means no rot can be present whatsoever, and the grapes must hit the right flavor and aroma in order to work with the tannins. What's more, it's a small-production wine, because the fruit has to be just right. But it's not just qvevri-style wine unleashing bottled-up excitement: So-called "orange wine" is cool because it's much more diverse than appearances might lead you to believe: It can be made with any kind of white grape, might be a blend, and could be made with little intervention-like in the qvevris-or not.
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