ORANGE & SKIN CONTACT WINE
This week I thought I'd take a moment to talk about all the orange/skin contact/amber wines we have in stock since we're getting more and more and it's a category that confuses lots of customers.
The easiest way to describe orange wines are "white wines made in the style of red wines". So instead of just pressing the grapes for the juice and discarding the must (the skins, seeds etc.) the wine is allowed to macerate on the skins for a period of time, sometimes briefly, and sometimes in the case of some wines up to a year. The difference in aging makes a huge difference in how the wine comes out which I'll explain better below.
The process of making skin contact wines is an ancient one, and most likely every ancient winemaking region in the world that had white grapes probably made wine in this style at one point or another. The country of Georgia, however, has had an unbroken tradition of winemaking in this style, and for the modern world they are the keepers of tradition and knowledge. The arch-typical skin contact wine in Georgia has been made in monasteries in old Qveri, large buried amphora, that are filled with grapes and must, and left for 6 months to a year in the cold ground. This type of long maceration wine produces intensely tannic, serious wines that often drink like wines in their texture and weight. They are intense, thoughtful wine, hard to describe without tasting a few.
In the mid-nineties a winemaker in Friuli, in northern-Italy named Josko Gravner began to be disenchanted with the modern winemaking styles that had made him famous, techniques borrowed from Napa and Bordeaux to make manipulated wines for global consumption. So he began to look back to Friuli's history and the styles of winemaking pre-WW2, before industrialization became the norm. He learned about making skin contact wines and he went further down the rabbit hole and discovered that winemakers in Georgia were still making wines the same way. After a few vintages, adventurous winemakers in the same region such as Stanko Radikon who's wines we've carried, Ales Kristanic at Movia, and Paolo Vodopivec at Vodopivec started experimented with the technique, and slowly it began to spread around the world. There's a great article on Gravner linked below:
https://grapecollective.com/articles/another-way-is-possible-josko-gravner-and-the-never-ending-quest-for-improvement
Here's a few of our current skin contact offerings.
Cardedu 'Bucce' Vermentino, Grillo, Nasco NV
Sardinia and it's cousin to the North, Corsica are for me some of the most exciting wines in Europe. They have long gone unnoticed in Europe, mainly because of the difficulty getting them from their respective islands to the mainland, as well as the fact that most of the wines stay locally. The winemaker Sergio Loi is a 4th generation traditional winemaker in the Southeast of Sardinia, which is rocky and very infrequently traveled. The 'Bucce' (skins) is what I would describe a beginner's skin contact wine. Made from vermentino it's a wine that treads the line between white and orange, light on it's feet but with enough texture and interest from the skin contact to differentiate it. Here's a nice writeup from the importer Portovino:
https://portovino.com/producers/cardedu/
COS 'Rami' Inzolia and Grecanico 2020
There is very few wineries around that excite Uznea and I as much as Sicilian producer COS. Founded in 1980 by three friends Giambattista Cilia, Cirino Strano and Giusto Occhipinti (whose last names form the name COS) in Vittoria. They work exclusively with indigenous sicilian varieties, Zibbibo, Frappato (which we have as well), Nero d'Avola and others. This wine is a blend of two rarely seen grapes,Grecanico and Insolia macerated on the skins for a little over a week, which gives it some texture but not too much.
https://www.cosvittoria.it/en/
Skegro Family KRS Orange Zilava 2020
Bosnia/Herzegovina haven't been on the radar of most people when they think about wine but there are a few importers in the United States who have dedicated themselves to bringing over wines from the forgotten regions of Eastern Europe. This wine is from the small town of Radišići, made from the Zilava grape, which is the first time I've ever encountered it. The family themselves are dedicated to real polyculture, growing figs, olives, citrus among other things right besides the vines. It spends 15-20 days gently macerating on the skins and is clean and bright for for a skin contact wine. Info on the winery below.
https://www.vinumusa.com/wineries/skegro
Gravner Ribolla Venezia Guilia 2014
You got the whole story above but I wanted to highlight the fact that we have this wine from Josko Gravner, which is his flagship wine, and really the wine that introduced the world as a whole to the ancient traditions of this style of winemaking. from the grape Ribolla Gialla, this wine spends 5 months in amphora and then it rests in large neutral oak barrels for an additional six(!) years. Truly a masterpiece of a wine.
Otia Kakheti Chinuri 2020
This wine, from an indigenous Georgian grape Chinuri, in the Kakheti region, is real old school Georgian wine. It spends three to six months on the skins buried in Qveri and comes out a deep amber color. It's from bio-dynamic fruit and has no additives whatsoever. It's as serious as a skin contact wine as you can get, meant for slow enjoyment rather than throwing back a bottle. Winery information hard to come by so sadly no links.
Till next week,
Cory