ORANGE WINES - an explosive popularity

To make most modern white wines, the grapes are crushed, and the solids are quickly separated from the juice to maintain the wine’s pale color. Orange wines are white wines produced more like reds, with prolonged maceration of crushed grape skins and seeds. Often made in clay vessels or wooden barrels, they are relics of ancient winemaking traditions that trace back to the Caucasus. They’ve been popularized recently by Italians and Slovenians, and are produced today by enterprising winemakers worldwide. Rather than being orange, these skin-fermented white wines range from bright gold to tawny brown. On the palate, they often possess the texture, body and tannins of red wines and the fruit and minerality of white wines. Stylistically unique, many offer earthiness, funk and a savory, richly textured mouthfeel. Perhaps the person most responsible for reintroducing orange wines is Friulian Josko Gravner. Once a producer of crisp, easy-drinking white wines, he became disillusioned with the technological practices rampant in modern winemaking. Through the 1990s, Gravner pared his winemaking back to the basics, looking to ancient Georgia for inspiration. In the late ’90s, he invested in a qvevri, a traditional Georgian clay vessel. He buried it and emulated ancient techniques, fermenting and macerating white wines on the skins. The results were spiced with earthen honey and dried fruit flavors, and rippled with minerality and tannin. Elements of his skin-contact winemaking can now be seen in wines throughout Italy, neighboring Slovenia and beyond. In less than a decade, Gravner’s wines, and those of many of his colleagues, became ubiquitous in high-end restaurants and wine bars. The sudden popularity of orange wines didn’t go unnoticed in Georgia, where qvevri wines have been produced for at least 5,000 years. Lined with beeswax and buried in the ground, qvevri provide natural temperature control and slow, oxidative aging that produces earthy, texturally distinct skin-contact wines. In Georgia, many export-minded wine producers have readily embraced modern, international-style winemaking. But a handful of small, independent qvevri enthusiasts are captivating new audiences, especially within the burgeoning natural wine movement.

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