What’s ancient is new again with orange wine
It’s a big development for a small but deeply cool wine style. Ontario just became the first region in the world to legitimize orange wine by legislating production parameters. As of July 1, orange wines made here in accordance with these new parameters can seek VQA approval. This move paves the way for the LCBO to start listing orange wines — something it doesn’t currently do.
“Now that VQA has created the legal definition, our lab can now have parameters that are specific to this category” says Astrid Brummer, category manager for Ontario wines at the LCBO. “We are working toward offering customers a selection of orange wines sometime in the next year.”
If you’re asking yourself, “Wait, What is orange wine?” you’re not alone. It’s an ancient wine style that only resurfaced about 20 years ago and is catching on all over the world. And no, it’s not wine made from oranges.
Orange wine, also known as “amber wine” or “skin-fermented white wine,” is just that: White wine fermented on the skins. Modern white winemaking discards skins before fermentation.
Including skins not only imparts more colour, flavour and texture to wine, it introduces more oxygen — which adds a good deal of umami.
Umami is that fifth taste descriptor food scientists now accept along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter. If you imagine porcini risotto topped with aged parmesan and a drizzle of truffle oil, you can imagine umami — mushrooms, chicken broth, parmesan and truffle are full of the stuff.
Orange wine done well is riveting. So the idea of making it more accessible is exciting. But there’s a vocal anti-orange-wine camp out there too.
The classic criticism is the style masks varietal expression and terroir, or a sense of place in a wine. But others argue orange wine is the purest form of both variety and terroir, because it uses the full fruit (rather than just the juice) and is often additive-free and unfiltered.
“I would suggest current markers of varietal and terroir expression are dictated by conventional winemaking, which use winemaking practices that result in a contrived, predetermined end product that emulates the classic benchmarks of those varieties, be it white, Burgundy or what have you” says Brent Rowland, a winemaker at Pearl Morissette.
One of the first orange wines that truly blew me away was a barrel sample of Pearl Morissette’s orange wine called 2015 Cuvee Blu, which is resonant, nutty, lifted and pure with cascading allusions of orange, lemon, cream, marshmallow and marzipan. It’s not bottled yet and Rowland doesn’t know when he’ll do that, but it’s worth snapping up when it is.
Although orange wine is still quite niche and seen as a bit radical, it’s how white wine was made for thousands of years with only a few places, such as Georgia (the country, not the state), maintaining this production method.
In Georgia, winemakers don’t just ferment the juice with the skins, they do so in qvevris (cone-shaped clay amphorae) buried in the ground.
When Italian winemaker Josko Gravner travelled there in the ’90s, inspiration struck him and he re- turned to Italy to make wine this way. Other winemakers quickly followed suit and what was ancient is new again.
Confusingly, the words “orange,” “amber” or “skin-fermented white” don’t often appear on labels of wine made this way. And in restaurants that actually offer orange wine, the bottles are usually listed under the “white wines” heading. So you really have to know what you’re looking for. Good news is it is well worth scouting out.
To help you do so, I found five thrilling bottles of orange wine to taste in Toronto by the glass and bottle. Here’s my star list. Carolyn Evans Hammond is a Torontobased wine writer. She is also a Londontrained sommelier, two-time bestselling wine book author and president of the Wine Writers’ Circle of Canada. Reach her at carolyn@carolynevanshammond.com