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Not long ago, we went to dinner with friends to enjoy a tasting menu, and since there were six of us at the table, we ordered a bottle for every other course. Our friends like to have a glass of wine with their meal, but they’re not experts. As the main course approached, we ordered a red wine from the menu, which everyone enjoyed—but the sommelier suggested a more interesting choice. We decided to go along with it and order his recommended bottle, an orange wine made from Sauvignon Blanc. As soon as our friends took a sip, it was obvious that they didn’t like the wine. Not at all. Their faces alone told the story, but then they used descriptors like “apple cider vinegar” and “sour beer” as they waited for something more pleasant to clear their palates. We then ordered a bottle of the popular wine we’d ordered first, which everyone enjoyed immensely. And yes, over dinner with friends when we had free time, we found an educational moment to talk about orange wine and natural wine and their pros and cons. (Not all orange wines are natural and not all natural wines are orange, but they largely occupy the same space in a Venn diagram.)
Orange wine—that is, wine made from white grapes that have had contact with the skins for an extended period of time, giving it a distinctive orange, amber, or copper hue—is trending right now. But it’s not an easy category to understand, so a conversation is often required. If orange wine’s spiritual home is Georgia, where it’s been made in the same style since about 6,000 B.C., it’s found a new generation of devotees in Brooklyn, home to perhaps the highest concentration of natural wine bars and devotees in the world. At Cherry on Top, a natural wine bar in Bushwick, an entire section of the wine list is devoted to the Garfield-colored beverage, and head sommelier Sammi Schachter, who goes by the name Sammi Schack, says orange wine is “by far the bar’s most requested type of wine,” which is why she always offers at least two varieties by the glass. But even among her enthusiastic clientele, confusion persists. She has heard guests talk about “wine made from oranges,” but she uses these offhand remarks as an opportunity to talk about the style in more detail.
“Many of our guests are in their twenties and I sense their hesitation when it comes to using wine terminology and generally choosing a bottle of wine they may not be familiar with,” says Schack. “I like to share their enthusiasm for orange wine and always encourage my guests to feel confident in their order and description.” She prefers bottles from Northern Italy or Eastern Europe and one of her favorites is Franco Terpin Quinto Quarto Bianco Sivi for its “lively structure balanced by zesty acidity, honeyed citrus zest and salty minerality.”
Viña González Bastías Naranjo
While it might be difficult to find a selection of orange wine outside of major metropolitan areas, especially when choices are limited to grocery stores or restaurant chains, the style is gaining traction in major cities. At both El Che and Chicago’s Brasero, wine director Alex Cuper has created separate areas for the category. At El Che, he includes fun and informative descriptions for some of the bottles on the menu, while he believes Brasero’s selection opens the door to conversations about darker, more complex white wines. “At Brasero, we have a menu that has all bottles under $100. We want to break down the barriers to entry and start a conversation about wine in a pleasant, casual way,” Cuper says. He likes varieties from the Itata Valley in southern Chile and the Uco Valley in Argentina, and his favorites include Viña González Bastías Naranjo, fermented in terra-cotta barrels.
At the renowned southern Italian restaurant A16 in San Francisco, co-owner and wine director Shelley Lindgren organizes her menu by region, offering dozens of orange wines, with some of the top bottles she serves coming from Lazio, Sicily, Campania and Umbria. From Umbria, she particularly likes the Paolo Bea Arboreus Trebbiano Spoletino, thanks to the owner’s commitment to preserving old vines.
Despite its popularity, orange wine often needs at least a mention on the wine list so customers know what to expect. Luke Boland, corporate wine director for restaurant group Hospitality Department, which operates Bronze Owl, Coral and Point Seven restaurants in New York, adds the word “orange” to the list to denote the style. Boland says that while his Midtown Manhattan customers often look for more classic options, he believes “it’s an important wine that has its loyal fans, and that orange wine offers a unique, flexible pairing opportunity for us as sommeliers in certain situations.” At Coral’s 17-course omakase menu, for example, an orange wine “can offer unique flavors and complexity, more structure than a typical white wine, and a nuanced umami that pairs particularly well with sushi.”
Boland is sometimes cautious with guests. If someone orders a bottle of orange wine “out of the blue and without any prior conversation,” he switches to the term “skin-fermented white wine,” saying something along the lines of, “This is a spicier type of white wine that takes on some color and tannin from the skin, so it’s a white wine that’s been fermented like a red wine—I just want to make sure that’s what you’re looking for.” And even if after all that, the customer orders the bottle and doesn’t like it, he’ll take it back for free. “I’m not going to force anyone to drink something they don’t like,” Boland says. He looks for wines of this style in Eastern Europe, particularly Georgia, and in northern Italy, and his favorite bottles include Josko Gravner Ribolla Gialla. The current vintage is 2015 and Boland says it “shows aromas of dried orange peel, orange oil, mushrooms, forest floor, sea salt, and dried peaches and apricots that you really don’t find in many other wines.”
Boland makes an interesting point: Orange wine can have a flavor profile that’s completely different from what you’d expect from a white wine, including notes of dried peaches and apricots, flint, leather, smoke, toasted nuts, and roasted meat—plus, wines aged in amphorae can have a much fuller texture. While many orange wines made in the natural style are best drunk young, some are made for long storage and only get better with time. Among this group is Gérard Bertrand Villa Soleilla, a blend of Roussanne, Viognier, and Vermentino from Bertrand’s Château l’Hospitalet estate. Grown biodynamically, it’s fermented in oak barrels and then aged in a combination of clay amphorae, glass amphorae, and egg-shaped vessels made of wood and stainless steel. The result is round in the mouth with lovely freshness and flavours of nectarine, dried thyme, honeycomb and slivered almonds with a bright but complex finish. Like so many orange wines we’ve enjoyed, this bottle offers exciting food pairing possibilities.
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