![]() 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. ![]() Gravner was a successful conventional winemaker in the 1980s and ’90s before rejecting modern trappings. 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, both emotionally and intellectually. Wines like those from Josko Gravner and 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. The best orange wines succeed not because they are orange but because they express nuances of beauty and culture in profound and distinctive ways. Others are thought to be flawed only because their unfiltered haziness and tannins are so strange among white wines. ![]() But why would it be surprising to find bad examples of any type of wine? People tire of them quickly when the novelty disappears. They have been hailed as innovative expressions, and damned as flawed, oxidized, repetitive and dull.īoth the praise and the criticism have been well earned. 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 twin forces of history and fashion combine to create a remarkable tension around orange wines. That view would not be unreasonable, given the 20-year trajectory of modern orange wines. Orange wines may seem trendy, like a hipster fashion that bewitches bargoers from London to Tokyo. It’s not literally accurate, of course, but for that matter, neither are white wines white nor reds red. Most, though, have settled on orange wine, a term that has piqued the imagination of a generous percentage of the wine-buying public. ![]() Others prefer the phrase skin-contact whites or even skin-macerated whites, which, while technically correct, lacks any sort of evocative power. They can otherwise range from pale pink to rosy copper, russet or a dark, almost ruby-shaded brown. Some use the phrase amber wine, which describes the color of at least a few examples. People are still grappling with what to call these sorts of wines. This yields something altogether different, a wine seen far less often than rosé. Millions of bottles of these wines are sold each summer - “Waiter, bring me rosé!”īy 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. A lot of winemakers do just that, leaving the juice in contact with the skins for only a short while, just long enough to gain a pink tinge. What if the producer switched things up? Let’s say you had red grapes, but processed them using the techniques for making white wine. The juice is whisked away far more quickly than it would be with reds, to begin its fermentation with minimal color and undetectable tannins. 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. When the fermentation is complete and the winemaker is satisfied, the wine is drawn off the skins to begin the aging process.Ĭonventional white wines are made differently. This adds not only color to the juice but also tannins, which contribute texture and structure to the darkening wine. To make red wine, the producer begins by macerating the juice of the grapes with the pigment-bearing skins. Yes, the color is obvious, but it’s also the methods of production. From a distance, what divides white wines from reds seems pretty clear.
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