750Daily: The Diversity of Orange Wines

Rather interesting summary of the Diversity of Orange Wines by Remy Charest in 750Daily:
750Daily: Orange Wines

much of which I agree with.

I don’t much care for the use of the term “orange” wine to characterize skin-contact whites. Because many of them are not the least bit orange. I much prefer BobbyStuckey’s term “Vini Macerati” to characterize these wines. But I’m afraid I’m losing this battle.

He correctly points out that many of these VM wines are made by natural winemakers. Supposedly, they embrace that style because the higher tannin levels in these wines allow them to use little or no SO2 additions. Alas, many of the most miserable VM I’ve tried are made by natural winemakers.

He correctly highlights the importance of using aromatic varieties (Muscat/Riesling/GWT/etc) in making VM that are interesting from the get-go. He also suggests that American hybrid white grapes are good candidates for making VM…though I’ve seen very few of these wines.
VM made from more neutral grapes (Chard/RibollaGialla/TrousseauGris/etc) tend to be not as interesting when young than those made with aromatic grapes. However, they (like their aromatic counterparts) can oftentimes/sometimes become fantastic/complex wines w/ btl age. And sometimes not…they keep that hard/austere/tannic character for their entire life.

But anyway, I think Remy’s emphasis on the diversity in styles of VM is an important point of this interesting article. A good read.
Tom

Tasted a very nice skin-fermented Picpoul Blanc a few weeks ago, sourced from Alder Springs Vineyard and made by a fairly new (1st vintage 2016) producer called Anthesis in Santa Rosa. It was a 2016 vintage wine so it had a few years to develop and it was showing quite well. They also poured a skin-fermented Falanghina, also from Alder Springs, that spent 30 days on the skins - vs. 15 for the Picpoul - that was good but not as expressive as the Picpoul.

I agree that I don’t like the term “orange wine” but it’s the most recognized term so I use it sometimes. I prefer “skin-fermented” when the wines are indeed fermented on the skins, and “skin-contact” when the must spends a short time on the skins - a couple of hours to a couple of days - after which it’s pressed before fermentation starts. Guess I’m not in the “Vini Macerati” camp regarding a term to describe these wines since only you and a relative handful of others have any idea what that means! [wow.gif]

Sounds like an interesting article and I’ll try to read it when I have a chance.

In France they generally just use ‘maceration’.