Orange Wine: A Simple and Approachable Guide

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In today’s post I’m giving you a simple guide to orange wine, because it intrigued me more than you can believe. I mean, orange wine? One of summers hottest wine colours.

At least in my world.

Orange wine is not new, in fact the process of making orange wine is ancient. But the process of making this type of wine has only resurfaced over the last few decades.

But it’s somewhat new in Ontario. In 2017 Ontario approved orange wine as a VQA category. But I just heard about it this summer. Womp womp.

Funnily enough, I first heard about orange wine through Grace Atwood who has her own review here.

But considering I live in Ontario wine country, either I’m living under a wine rock or the marketing for it locally is lacking.

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What is Orange Wine?

For starters, orange wine is just a colour, it’s not actually it’s own type of wine in its own category. So before you start thinking of it on par with another wild drink trend that’s out there, it’s more scientific than anything.

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Basically, the wine colour is created by using white grapes, mashing them up, putting them in a large vessel and letting them age with the skins and seeds still attached. This natural process uses no additives or yeast giving it that orange colour. See, science.

If you’re disappointed, I’m sorry! It’s fun to drink anyway.

Shortly after reading Grace’s post, 13th street winery, a local family owned boutique winery launched their own orange wine called Maximum Intervention.

Wine Makers Tasting Notes:

Unfiltered with a slightly hazy appearance of amber honey moving to rust. The nose is amazingly complex with aromas of dried fruit, wildflower honey, orange zest and white pepper. On the palate there are intense flavours of apricots, persimmon, orange peel, roasted herbs and herbal tea, with some tannins and a slight bitterness, refreshed with delightful acidity. But the next smell and taste bring more aromas and flavours! The finish is long and complex with lingering tannins.

This wine will pair beautifully with an abundance of dishes from curries with aromatic spices to anything deep-fried or even spicy, but aromatic Mexican dishes.

My Thoughts on Orange Wine After the First Glass

I went and picked a bottle up along with their award winning butter tarts (tough day I know) let it chill in the fridge for a few days, and dug in at 5PM on a Friday.

It was not AT ALL what I expected. It was unique. Not in a bad way, just nothing I had ever had before.

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It’s a sparkling for starters, which I didn’t realize because it doesn’t actually say sparkling on the bottle, and is their first skin fermented white wine, a riesling.

Consistency wise, its murky which I always appreciate since that has always allowed for a nice flavour. Taste wise, it’s a bit juicier and more jammy than I had anticipated which if you have a palette for that you would love this.

In my opinion, this would be a great dessert wine!

Overall I liked it’s uniqueness and would definitely buy it for a special occasion. Also totally appropriate as a fall wine, for thanksgiving or dinner parties in the cooler months since it pairs well with spicier nuttier flavours.

Change is Good

Adding fresh new luxuries into your life is always a good thing, and bringing a bottle of wine to your next girls night or dinner party might just be the excitement you’re looking for during a pandemic.

I welcome the wine and really enjoyed how different it was, it’s also local which I 100% stand by- especially during times like these.

Details:

• Price: $ 29.95 CAD
• Riesling Orange Wine 2019
• Appellation- VQA Creek Shores
• Vineyard- 100% Witty Vineyard Corner Block
• Brix at Harvest 20.1
• Alcohol content 11.9%
• Residual sugar 3 grams/Litre

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