The polarizing power of orange wine
From a distance, what divides white wines from reds seems pretty clear. Yes, the color is obvious, but it’s also the methods of production.
To make red wine, the producer begins by macerating the juice of the grapes with the pigment-bearing skins. This adds not only color to the juice but also tannins, which contribute texture and structure to the darkening wine. When the fermentation is complete and the winemaker is satisfied, the wine is drawn off the skins to begin the aging process.
Conventional white wines are made differently. A winemaker might allow the juice to soak for a few hours, or a day, with the skins, which are pale but not entirely without pigment. The juice is whisked away far more quickly than it would be with reds, to begin its fermentation with minimal color and undetectable tannins.
What if the producer switched things up? Let’s say you had red grapes, but processed them using the techniques for making white wine. Millions of bottles of these wines are sold each summer — “Waiter, bring me rosé!”
By contrast, imagine that you had white grapes and wanted to make wine using the method for reds, keeping the juice in prolonged contact with the pale skins. This yields something altogether different, a wine seen far less often than rosé. People are still grappling with what to call these sorts of wines.
Some use the phrase amber wine, which describes the color of at least a few examples.
Others prefer the phrase skin-contact whites or even skin-macerated whites, which, while technically correct, lacks any sort of evocative power.
Most, though, have settled on orange wine, a term that has piqued the imagination of a generous percentage of the winebuying public.
Orange wines may seem trendy. That view would not be unreasonable, given the 20-year trajectory of modern orange wines.
But wines made like this are the oldest form of whites, stretching back centuries if not millenniums. In some parts of the world, like the Republic of Georgia, white wine never stopped being made this way, despite formidable political and cultural pressure during the years of Soviet domination to adopt more conventional methods of mass production.
The twin forces of history and fashion combine to create a remarkable tension around orange wines. They have been celebrated in places where they have a long history, like Georgia and Slovenia, as emblems of cultural identity, while simultaneously being dismissed elsewhere for their vapid trendiness.
The best orange wines succeed not because they are orange but because they express nuances of beauty and culture in profound and distinctive ways.
Wines like those from Josko Gravner and Stanko Radikon — who both work in the Collio region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where northeast Italy touches Slovenia — were among the earliest and most influential in the renaissance of these wines. They resonate not just because they are so good qualitatively, but also because, in their reckoning with centuries of history and conflict, they speak powerfully.
Gravner was a successful conventional winemaker in the 1980s and ’90s before rejecting modern trappings.
His quest for something more satisfying took him to Georgia, where he was inspired by the local technique, stretching back thousands of years, of fermenting wine in qvevri, or amphorae, buried in the earth to stay cool.
He brought qvevri and the techniques of skinmaceration back to his winery, where, since 2001, his production has set a standard for orange wines.
Radikon never adopted amphorae. But he made his own experiments and developed techniques that radically reimagined how his ancestors might have made wine. His son, Sasa, has continued the tradition since Radikon’s death in 2016.
The Gravner and Radikon wines share some qualities. They are both textured with lightly raspy tannins. They are energetic, with aromas and flavors that, like many orange wines, tend toward pressed flowers and dried fruits rather than fresh ones. But they are different as well.
Few orange wines are as uncompromising as these. But I’ve had plenty of excellent examples. Just to name a few that I’ve enjoyed recently, La Stoppa, Elena Pantaleoni’s wonderful estate in Emilia-Romagna, makes Ageno, a dark, spicy, herbal wine that is made mostly of malvasia. It’s a lovely, full-on example.
Farther south, in Umbria, Paolo Bea produces Arboreus, a waxy, bright and juicy wine made of trebbiano spoletino. In the Tyrnavos region of Greece, south of Thessaloniki, Papras makes Pleiades, a hazy amber, floral wine, made of the roditis grape, with flavors reminiscent of orange.
From closer to home, I recently had two skinfermented pinot gris. One was from Two Shepherds in Sonoma Valley, the other from Donkey & Goat, which buys the grapes from the Anderson Valley in Mendocino. Pinot gris, like the Greek roditis, is a white grape with a distinct pink cast, which gives the wines a coppery hue when made with skin-contact techniques.
The Two Shepherds was savory, with a lightly musky quality, while the Donkey & Goat seemed fresher and more zesty, with bright floral aromas.
Far more wonderful examples exist, particularly in Georgia, Slovenia and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. For more suggestions, Simon J. Woolf ’s book “Amber Revolution” is an excellent source.
The best places to buy orange wines tend to be shops that also have selections of natural wines.
As with all types of wine, good and bad versions abound. Flaws that used to be common in wine, like oxidation or too much volatile acidity, have largely been vanquished in conventional wines. But they can still appear in wines, like many in the orange genre, that avoid technological solutions to these sorts of problems.
That may sound as if I’m placing orange wines in the natural-wine category. Many would qualify, but not nearly all. Natural wines must satisfy a much greater set of imperatives, including how the grapes are farmed, while orange wines must simply be skinmacerated.
While faults may seem starkly obvious in orange and natural wines, it’s important to understand that the faults of dullness, sameness and bland sterility are accepted without comment in conventional wines because they are so common.
That does not excuse either set of faults. But it helps in understanding them.