Viña González Bástias Naranjo Orange, Maule Valley, Chile 2022 (£24, The Sourcing Table) With the zeal of the previously sceptical convert, I have become rather evangelical about orange wines in recent years. So here I am, clambering atop my soapbox once more, megaphone in hand, to preach to the many unconverted my message that all wine-drinkers’ lives would be richer with a little orange in their lives. It seems to me that the best of these wines combine the best qualities of white and red wines – the freshness and raciness of whites; the chew and complexity of reds – to make something original. In fact, the term orange covers such a broad spectrum of colours and styles – from wines that are all-but-indistinguishable from whites in appearance and flavour to the dark amber and nuttily sherry-like – it makes generalisations about the category every bit as flawed as they are for red wine. Better, perhaps, to treat each orange wine as an individual, capable, as Viña González Bastias’s glorious muscat-based example is, of sui generis flavours and textures such as, in this case, the combination of mouthwatering citrus pith tang and chewiness with floral, muscat grapey prettiness.
Blackbook Slow Disco Sauvignon Blanc, Essex, England 2021 (£19, Blackbook Winery) Orange wines are effectively the red wines of the white grape world. Just as red wines get their colour, chewy tannins and much of their flavour complexity from the (red) grape skins, so orange wines are made by keeping the juice of white grapes in contact with the skins for an extended period during fermentation. Most white wines, by contrast, are made solely from the juice of white grapes, while rosé wines, which at their palest are effectively the white wines of the red grape world, are made from red grapes which have only been in very brief contact with the skins. Much of the stylistic range in orange wines derives from each winemaker’s skin-maceration recipe. Some producers, such as Battersea-based urban winery Blackbook, give their pristine, Essex-grown sauvignon blanc fruit just a few (12) days of skin contact, which gives a colour at the golden end of the white wine spectrum and a little extra texture to the classic tropical-citrus-elderflower sauvignon flavours.
Vinos Oceanicos Las Cepas Paco El Reflejo Blanco Viña del Gurugú y Finca M Alta, Jerez, Spain 2019 (£32, Les Caves de Pyrene) Also at the lighter end of the spectrum, Asda’s Gros Manseng Vin Orange 2022 (£7), made from the wonderfully tropical-trangy titular grape variety from Gascon, southwest France, is excellent value (as so many wines are from this region), offering a gentle touch of tannic grip to its vibrant Lilt-like flavours. At the other extreme, the original modern master of orange wine, Josko Gravner, gives his extraordinary, deep, dark amber, symphonically complex and resonant Gravner Ribolla Gialla, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy 2014 (£100, nattyboywines.co.uk; selfridges.com) five months of skin contact in buried clay amphorae (he also ages the wines, once separated from the skins, for a further six years in large oak casks). For the no-less-extraordinary Vinos Oceanicos wine, meanwhile, winemaker Raúl Moreno creates a wine that combines the Marmite and almond notes of manzanilla sherry with preserved lemon tang in a gorgeously silky, utterly original package.
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