Sanguis in Santa Barbara makes a few, all their blends are sort of wacky.
I had a Cote Rotie in 2017 called Marions Les! from Domaine Corps de Loup which was a full 20% Viognier so I think it counts.
Wow, that’s a lot of Viognier for a C-R - I agree that could be included in this category. Did the Viognier component stand out in that wine?
Honestly if I hadn’t had any of their other wines at the same time I might not have thought so, it would have just read as a particularly floral and open-knit CR. In comparison with their 100% syrah bottling yes, it was quite a bit more chugable, but it didn’t taste freakish or left-field. We’d had the just-bottled 2015 Rostaing Cote Roties earlier in the day and they were massively expressive and floral so I think my brain was primed for syrah wines that leapt out of the glass. Only after we’d tasted the Corps de Loup 100% Syrah could we pick out the difference.
On a weekend trip to Anderson Valley this weekend, one of the standouts was a wine from Lichen, Les Pinots Noir & Gris, 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Pinot Gris. All immediately pressed off the skins so no hint of red in the color, but a great acid-richness balance, smoky-creamy in the mid-palate.
Sounds like an interesting wine. Several Anderson Valley wineries have made a “Pinot Noir Blanc” over the past 8-10 years, from Pinot Noir fruit pressed right away. Not sure I’ve seen that anywhere else.
The Pinot Days I went to a few years ago had a couple from Oregon. Quite good.
If you recall, a few of the old world whites that have made our brown bag tastings have included a red variety or two.
Interestingly, many of the examples above in this thread are the flip-side of that, where the white grapes are fermented on their skins (and often co-fermented).
Martin Ray, precursor of Mount Eden, used to say that still Blanc de Noirs was the ultimate wine for cold ham and turkey. I’m convinced it could be very interesting in parts of CA that struggle to get phenolic ripeness with reasonable sugars.
I may have had a Pinot Noir Blanc from elsewhere than Anderson Valley though I don’t specifically recall any.
We certainly have had some whites with a small percentage of red varieties, though not sure they’ve been a large enough percentage to be the sort of wine I’m thinking about. And I’m sure you’re right about some of the wines mentioned having skin-fermented whites in the blend.
I’ve tried a couple of vintages of the Lichen PN/PG blend, generally quite nice.
-Al
I hope Vincent jumps in and comments, because I don’t think this is an orange wine as I would define it. There are plenty of Pinot Gris “rose” wines made with some skin contact, some with lots of exposure to oxygen, some not. I get the impression that this one is made with skins included in the entire fermentation. It is another take on the spectrum of making Pinot Noir as a red, rose, or white wine. I admit that it doesn’t meet the description of red/white blend technically, but encompasses the spirit.
Nice to hear your tips. I’ll see if I can get my hands on some of that Clonakilla and Ravensworth stuff, they sound interesting.
Observation: If we just gave up our obsession for deep colors in reds, a lot of possibilities would open up, I think. I don’t even know where that comes from, to be honest. Why is a deep red color more desirable than a less deep one? Why do we always complement a shitty wine on its deep color, whilst faulting a good tasting wine for not having a deep enough one? Is it because the deeper color in our minds relate to more red and dark fruit flavors? Is there really a correlation between depth of color and any specific flavors? Actually, there are some. A deeply purple/blackish wine tends to be lower in acid. A redder wine, tends to have higher acid. Is that what’s driving the color obsession towards deeper reds, subconsciously?
Whether you want to call this an orange wine or not really is beside the point. Some only consider skin-fermented whites that undergo oxidation to be true orange wines though I don’t see the oxidation part of it as essential. The skin-fermented Pinot Gris wines I’ve worked on went completely through primary fermentation on the skins as well, but this type of wine is entirely different than a red-white blend.
Isn’t that just a conventional pinot noir rose under a different name?
Maybe it’s a little more light version of one - some producers will allow some cold soak before pressing, or put a bit of still red into it
Not quite the same since there is no skin contact at all, direct press so there is no pink color to the wine at all. I’ve never worked on this type of wine but I’d think you would need to be careful not to break up berries before loading the clusters into the press, maybe be more selective about just what goes into the press for this type of wine.
While some skin-contact whites / amber wines / orange wines do have somewhat oxidative character, it certainly isn’t necessary for the style. I’ve had tons of deep amber-colored wines that have exhibited no oxidative character whatsoever. Thinking that orange wines “must” be oxidative is as ridiculous as thinking that fortified wines need to be oxidative just because Madeiras, Tawny Ports and Oloroso Sherries are.
“Blanc de Noirs” Spätburgunders have been a big thing for many years in Germany - can’t remember how many I’ve tasted. And although the name might conjure images of Champagne, the wines are usually still whites made from Pinot Noir (there are lots of other red varieties used as well, but they seem to get exported quite seldom).
Thanks for this info, Otto - I wasn’t aware of that but I suppose it’s really not so surprising.
Though it’s getting off the main topic here, I have tasted the La Onda 2017 “Blanco de Tinto” from the northern Sierra Foothills, which is whole-cluster pressed Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ve also had the Broc Cellars Lagrein - not quite the same since it does get very short skin contact before pressing, and with a variety as dark as Lagrein even that gives it plenty of color, like a medium-dark rosé. Perhaps it’s time to start a separate discussion on “Blanc de Noirs” still wines?
Didn’t we discuss this before? The question is the terminology: Should the broad category of skin contact wines be called “orange wines” or should “orange wine” refer to the subset that are oxidative?
Our concern, having made some, is to avoid a stigmatizing term that implies the wine is contrary to what it is. People around here who know that term think oxidative. Ours aren’t, so we’ve put “skin contact” in small print on the whites and “Ramato styled Pinot Gris” in small print under its proprietary name. Saying they’re orange wines would make it less clear what they’re about.
I guess, it’s terminology, since you seem to have decided that for some reason, oxidative orange wines are somehow a key part of this genre.
That’s why I just leave this piece here: Orange wines It’s by Simon Woolf, an authority of sorts when it comes to orange wines / amber wines / skin contact whites. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but - from what I’ve witnessed - that text seems to reflect the sentiment of a larger part of consumers.
Anyhow, I understand immediately what one means if the wine is labeled as “Ramato styled”. However, I’m not so sure how many pedestrian customers have ever heard of “Ramato”, while a term “orange wine” might ring some bells.
Peter Cargasacchi had a lower price label called Point Concepcion, and it had a “rose” which was something like half and half a red and white wine. It was actually pretty good for a basic, inexpensive quaffer.
Not many winemakers in either appellation use white grapes in their red wines. It used to be required in Chianti but they wisely dropped that requirement some years ago.
Aside from Beaucastel, only a few producers in Chateauneuf use the allowed white grapes.