By Rick Riozza
Believe it or not, there are still quite a few wine folks out there who do not realize that “skin-contact’ wine is a real category. A category like blends, sparkling, fortified and dessert wines, also includes skin-contact wine—okay, technically skin-contact white wine, but more brief. It’s a singular category, but one with incredible diversity. It all comes down to what happens in the vineyard and winery.
So realize skin-contact red wine and skin-contact white wine have been around for as long as they’ve been making wine. We’re guessing that Noah of the Bible made both types. Back then, after they collected all the grapes in the vineyard, and perhaps they did indeed separate white grapes from red grapes, but we’re thinking in the beginning, they left the grape skins of both types in each barrel until they figured the agreed time to pull the skins out of the barrel.
For reds, the wine got more darker & flavored the longer they macerated with the skins-on in the barrel; for whites, the wine became less colored & lighter the less time they macerated with the skins-on in the barrel. With the whites, they realized they could make some very clear looking wine with hardly any skin-contact.
When it comes to most wine grapes, the flesh of the grape isn’t pigmented; cut a Merlot grape open next to a Sauvignon Blanc grape, and the insides of both look more or less the same (pale green). Red wines get their color when the juice from crushed grapes is allowed to macerate on the grape-skins. White wines are typically made by crushing the grapes and then immediately removing the skins. Make a white wine the way you normally make a red wine — by keeping the juice with the skins as it ferments, and you get a wine that’s anywhere from pale gold to ruddy amber to actively “orange” and which also has some of the tannins and mouthfeel of a red: Enter now Orange wine.
Many of us love hearing and smiling over recent stories of people jumping onto the “orange wine train” and producing—quite often in their kitchens, orange stuff because it’s deemed natural and cool. They’ll go on to talk about orange wine varieties which can include tangerines, tangelos, mandarins, clementines, blood oranges, or sumo citruses. It takes a good wine personality to inform these folks calmly that there are no oranges in orange wine. Not a one.
As mentioned above, people have been fermenting white grapes on their skins for over centuries, using earthenware vessels. Skin-contact white wine—or the new, orange wine, is almost the norm in the Asian Caucus wine region; the Russian state of Georgia is famous for the stuff. Orange wine isn’t just a trend, it’s a glimpse into what wine may have been like thousands of years ago.
In the modern era, starting in the 1990s, winemakers in Italy’s Friuli region, inspired by these ancient traditions, began experimenting with this approach, and now orange wines have spread to practically every winemaking region in every country. Similarly, Friulian Pinot Grigio was traditionally made with skin contact — the style is called ramato, from the Italian word for copper.
Orange wine can be made with any white wine grape that’s left in contact with its skins for any amount of time. Those eye-catching amber, copper, or golden hues are due to the amount of time the juice sits with its skins. The resulting wines can be heavy & dark after aging underground in ancient clay amphora for years, to light, refreshing sippers that sat with their skins in stainless steel tanks for all of three hours. Orange winemaking follows natural process that uses little to no additives, thus giving it a “natural wine” moniker.
During fermentation, the wine is exposed to lots of oxygen which morphs fresh fruit and flower aromas into aromas like bruised apple and honey. Over time, the wines taste nutty. After an aging period, wines emerge with a clear, rich amber color. The color comes from linoleic in the grape seeds an astringent tannin comes from skin contact during fermentation.
Most orange wines aren’t sweet and have bold, honeyed aromas like jackfruit (a fleshy tropical fruit), hazelnut, brazil nut, bruised apple, wood varnish, linseed oil, juniper, sourdough, and dried orange rind. They can often taste/feel more like dry red wines because they have tannin in the palate, they’re bold, dry, and have tannin (like unsweetened iced tea) with a sourness similar to fruit beer. Because of their natural acidity and tannin, orange wines pair with a wide diversity of foods and holds up to both beef and fish dishes.
Orange wines can be an acquired taste—but really, you know if you like it right away. So simply give it a try. Here are two most popular orange wines found in most supermarkets:
Sun Goddess Pinot Grigio Ramato ($17). The wine has gentle and elegant aromas of peach, apricot and fresh flowers, with a hint of ginger. Mix of stone fruit and a pop of green apple skin that perks things up with lively acidity on the finish.” This is produced in Friuli Venezia, and, Mary J. Blige is the celeb behind the Sun Goddess line-up.
The next one is produced by the ever-popular French vintner, Gérard Bertrand. You probably enjoy his Côte des Roses Rosé. Bertrand’s Orange Gold Organic ($20). This wine is a blend of French whites, essentially Mediterranean: Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Viognier add volume, and, Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Muscat enrich the aromatic complexity of the wine.
There’s no oak here and a maceration time of about 15 days. Tastes of white flowers, fresh peach and apricot, on the palate, the wine is tropical-fruited, full-bodied and complex, smacking of tangerine, melon and spices. Delicious with soft cheeses, curry dishes and other spicy Asian foods. Cheers!
