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This week we're talking about what Orange wine is (and what it is not). Listen as we get into:

• The winemaking process that gives these wines their unique characteristics
• How these wines can surprise your palate with unexpected complexity and intriguing flavor profiles
• Michael and I taste three different orange wines, sharing our uncensored thoughts and reactions and thoughts on food pairings
• By the end, you'll not only understand what orange wine is but also feel inspired to seek it out on your next wine run!

Sip Spotlight Wines:

Langhart-Hill Rumplestiltskin Trousseau Gris (California)

Domaine Ostertag The New Chapter Vin Orange (Alsace)

Gulp Hablo (Spain)

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It's lighter, and it does have a little bit of frante to it.

And frante means listener. Not quite sparkling. Right. Where you feel a little bit of liveliness and tightness. Essence, like effervescent, but not fully.

Not the band effervescent, but no.

That's Evanescence.

Yeah. Correct.

Hello, and welcome to Sip with Nikki. I'm Nikki Lamberti here in Sonoma County, California, and so happy to have you listening in today. Hey, what's new?

Since we last spent time together, Michael and I got two puppies, Rosie and Lucy. We rescued two lab mixes from down in Southern California. So they have been keeping us busy.

And you may hear the pitter patter of little feet in the background today while we were tasting orange wines in our kitchen. So, orange wines. What gives? What are orange wines? Have you tried ride them before? Have you heard of this very cool category of wines?

It's kind of a newer thing that's really taken hold in the last couple years, and I felt like it was time to bring it up to speed. So today we're talking about what orange wines are not first and foremost.

And then I'll tell you what they are, how they're made, what to expect from them, what to pair with them for the ideal food of wine. Pairing that gives you those ratatouille fireworks that I always talk about and how to shop for them.

And then back by popular demand, my other half, Michael, will be joining me, and we taste three orange wines together, uncensored, and give you our opinion. I'm excited for you to learn more about these underappreciated wines that are off people's radar, and it's time to get them on.

So here we go with orange wines. Okay, so let's start with what orange wine is not. It's not wine made from oranges.

And while it sounds like I'm being a little bit of a smartass there, it's a valid question.

Because if there are things like strawberry wine that you hear them sing in romantic country songs and huckleberry wine and peach wine, and now I have an accent when I'm saying wine, those things are literally made from those fruits. I mean, you could ferment anything. However, orange wine is not made from oranges.

It's made from wine grapes, and it's made from white wine grapes that you're familiar with, things like Chardonnay and Semillon and grapes that you've heard me talk about. But the process is made in the style of a red wine. Hmm. So let's break that down.

So it's helpful to understand the difference in traditional white wine versus red wine process.

Normally, when we pick white grapes like Viognier, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, to name a few, and we are going for a traditional white wine style, the very first thing that's done is pressing the grape juice away from the skins. And the skins of the grapes are not part of the process.

Skins can add tannin or bitterness and astringency and certain types of phenolic or flavor or aromatic profiles.

And so in most white wines that you are probably enjoying, the skins were removed immediately and the juice itself, just the liquid was fermented into wine. That is very different than the process of making red wine. And if you're a regular listener, you've heard me talk through this in different episodes.

But with red grapes like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese, we pick the grapes and we crush the grapes, and we put the whole shebang into a tank, usually for fermentation. Juice, skin, seeds, flesh pulp, solid liquid, all of that. It's like a big stew.

Because in red wine, we want to extract the color and the tannin and all of those phenolics from the skins. That process, where the skins are left in contact with the fermenting red wine, is called maceration. And it just means skin contact time.

So that's your biggest difference between a typical white wine and red wine process.

So with orange wine, you start with white grapes like Chardonnay or Semillon or Sauvignon Blanc, but you keep the skins in contact with the juice like you would for a red wine. And it could be skin contact or maceration for a week. It could be up to to a month.

But because of that, you're actually extracting some color and tannin into the white wine. So it's no longer super pale in color. It can take on hues of orange or honey or even amber. Because of that skin contact time.

By the way, if you're having a little Teehee moment every time I say skin contact, then you are my people. Skin contact. Hehe. All right, let's get our minds out of the gutters. It may seem like orange wine is a new trend and sort of a hot take on wine.

I would say probably in the last five years is really when I've been hearing about it and seeing them out there in the market. But the cool thing is, it's not new. In fact, it's the opposite of new.

Making white wine in this process Goes back to ancient times where they were making wine in clay amphora. And a lot of the roots of this go all the way back to Georgia.

And I don't mean the state, but archeologists have found evidence of these practices more than 5,000 years ago. So what can you expect from the flavor of a white wine that's made with skin contact?

Well, definitely the fact that the skins are in there adds a whole new set of aromatics and flavors and a richness, because the chemistry is just different when you're fermenting it with the skins in there. And generally, the longer the skin contact and the deeper orange or amber of the color, the richer and deeper the flavor.

And they just really have an unusual flavor profile and mouth feel and texture to them, which also makes them really fun when it comes to food pairing. And you know that I love to talk about food and wine pairing, and I'm always chasing the perfect combination.

But one thing to keep in mind with these orange wines, they can almost have, like, a salty or saline note to them, earthy notes to them, which is not the typical profile you would think of with a white wine.

And so really great with hearty cheeses or even different types of cuisine that have a lot of different spices in them, like Moroccan cuisine and Ethiopian cuisine. So it's fun to just get in there and explore and play with some different combinations to see what really works well.

And it really depends on the wine. The other thing that is pretty typical, but not always the case with orange wines is that they fall into the category of.

I'm doing air quotes, natural wine. And I still need to do a whole episode about this, but you've heard me in previous episodes talk a little bit about it.

Not natural wine is not a official category.

But some things that happen with natural wines, to use that term, or why some producers choose to use that term, is the fermentation is done with native yeast that just exist on the grape skins instead of adding a specific yeast to start fermentation. And typically, they are unfiltered wines, which is why they're going to have a cloudy note to them. And I think that's good.

Going to be the case with some of the wines that Michael and I are about to taste in our Sip Spotlight. Sip Spotlight.

I don't know if I told you this, but multiple people have commented about the Jalapeno and Sauvignon Blanc episode, specifically about how funny you are, how good you are at describing things and our dynamic together. Did I tell you that?

No. You did not. But it's very interesting for me to think about because I feel like I don't describe wine very well.

I think you describe wine in a much more relatable way to people that don't necessarily have a wine vocabulary and certification like me, which is why we're a good combination.

I only went to wine jet High school.

Exactly. So what do you know about orange wine?

All I know is the color is orange, and I feel like they could be a little more layered. I just feel like it's not just like a straight, like, Sauvignon Blanc's stone fruit in it. Those have layers too.

I just feel like the overall taste of it is different.

Yeah. Because of the skin contact. Tiki. So I have tasted maybe two or three orange wines in my life, and probably not for years, so. So I'm excited.

I went to our local wine shop, Bottle Barn, just around the corner. It's a great store. And the guy inside was super helpful. Cause I said, I'm looking for orange wine, and he had them mostly in one shelf.

I don't know if this is the case in most wine stores, but it actually had a little section. I say section. It was like half of one shelf. But then a couple of them were scattered in their geographic locations.

Like, the one from Alsace was in a France region, and the one from Spain. So it can be maybe not so straightforward if you're going into the store looking for them. So just ask for help, because the guy was super helpful.

So I bought three. We have one from the Russian River Valley right here in Sonoma county, where we sit.

And we've got one from Alsace, as I mentioned, and then one from Spain. So the first one is Rumpelstiltskin, which I love the name. And I have some winemaking specs on this wine, but I'm not gonna read them out loud yet.

Let's just look at it. What do you think about the color?

It's blush pinkish going into orange.

Yeah. This one definitely looks a little more like a.

But if I bought it and it was a, I'd be like, oh, this has an orange tint to it, but it's definitely on the pinker side of orange. Ooh. And it smells interesting. Smells fruity.

Okay. I was not expecting that from the smell.

All right, talk to me.

To me. I could smell the fruit in it. The same thing, like I said, about, like, the stone fruit.

I could smell that it has the same essence of a Sauvignon Blanc smell to it. So you think it's gonna be a little bit more sweeter tasting or fruit tasting. And when you taste it, it's very.

There's a bitterness on the finish, obviously. Because of tannin.

Yeah, it's more tannic.

It smells like a white wine or a. But in my mouth, it feels like a red.

And if I was doing Hobie's tasting in the dark and I was blindfolded and someone put this glass in front of me, I would be so confused. Because what you smell does not lead you to what you taste. Yes.

It smells white and in your mouth it tastes red.

Yeah.

Yes.

I like the finish. It's not off putting to me. And I like that it's got a really long finish, like a red. Because of the tannin. It's very mouth coating.

I think it's yummy. I think it's interesting.

And it's trousseau. Gris.

Trousseau.

Trousseau Gris.

Gris in French. G R I S. That's gray in French. But you don't pronounce the S like Pinot gris. Trusau gris. So here's what we know about this Rumpelstiltskin.

Trousseau Gris is a rare, near extinct cultivar from the Jura region of France near Switzerland. The grape is neither white nor red, but a pink skin grape called gris. This wine was fermented on the skins for five weeks.

So five weeks of skin contact. Tee hee. The resulting wine is pink, orange colored with considerable structure on the palate. I totally agree with that.

Low intervention winemaking procedures. Many people call it natural wine. I've talked about that. Fermented with the native yeast naturally present on the grapes.

So when it says fermented the juice with skins and aged in neutral vessel. So neutral would probably be like steel or neutral barrels.

I would say neutral barrel. Oak. Yeah.

Okay.

Used oak barrel. I wanna try this with a piece of cheese. This is the Bello Gioso syrah rind cheese from Trader Joe's.

It's a very white, tangy cheese, and I think it's gonna be. I love that cheese. Ooh. Nope. Didn't play nice together. Did not like that at all, actually.

Oh, no.

Did you have the same cheese?

I had this one, I think.

Yeah, same. What happened?

It got bitter.

Like, it made it even more bitter. Interesting. What about an almond with olive oil and rosemary? I feel like these ones can be tricky to pair because of the phenolics and the tannin.

But if you find the right pairing. That was better.

That was much better.

That's so funny. We both nodded at the same time. Yeah, that was better. I think that other cheese was maybe too salty or too creamy.

What about the Beemster?

Beemster aged Gouda. Try that.

I think that was better.

Better. Okay, so we like the orange cheese with the orange wine, not the white cheese.

And there's a page about carne asada with red wines and al pastor with Chardonnay. And then there's a page all about chicken tacos with orange wine as a pairing.

And it says, finding a match for an orange wine is a fascinating part of our tasting. Orange wines fought with the iron notes in steak tacos and were overpowered by the fattiness of pork tacos.

But the char grilled chicken thigh taco like tannins were a perfect match, providing just enough structure to stand up to the rich meat, while the wine's bright acidity added a zesty edge. Can we have chicken tacos for dinner?

Maybe?

So I thought that was cool. Okay, we've moved on to wine number.

Two, the new chapter. It's a cool little label with a bunch of sheep on it.

These all have fun and interesting kind of odd looking labels. Yeah.

Domain Oster tag.

Vin Orange 13.5% alcohol 90% gewurch demeanor, 10% Sylvainor, which is our two lesser known, probably underappreciated by most American wine drinkers. Grapes.

But gewurcht Demeanor, or gewurcht as we call it for short, is in the aromatic family of white grapes with Riesling and Viognier that I always sing about.

And is that why you get the cloudiness, because of the unfiltered grit?

It is cloudy and less pink than Rumpels. Still skin definitely more of a true light orange. I haven't even smelled it yet. Ooh, your eyes got really big when you smelled it. Talk to Me. Ooh.

It's got old world smell to it.

Oh, my God.

Which I love. Always.

I almost smell. And this is maybe my brain trying to be literal, but like orange peel.

Yeah. That's hung out in a celery and.

Almost like a liqueur or like a cordial or liqueur note on there. Interesting. It's a little frizzante. It's interesting. It is very different than the first one.

Yeah. To me, this one, it's lighter and it does have a little bit of frissante to it.

And frissante means listener. Not quite sparkling. Right. Where you feel a little bit of liveliness and tightness.

Efferves.

Essence, like effervescent, but not fully.

Not the band effervescence, but ever.

No, that's evanescence.

Yeah. Correct.

The winemaker's notes say here everything Arthur Osterag touches turns to gold or amber.

In this case, this playful blend of gewurchtaminor with a splash of sylvaina is simultaneously fresh and deep, possessing otherworldly aromas and flavors of rose, petal, apricot and peach. Pair it with a creamy polenta. Hmm, that could be fun. Onion tart. Or your favorite card game. 13.5% alcohol certified biodynamic.

So that is like taking organic farming to a whole nother level with biodynamic, that is things like harvesting by the cycles of the moon and the tides. This one was the most expensive. This was 33.99.

It's expensive to be harvesting by the.

Yeah, I need some more time with this. I'm still getting to know it. It's very intriguing. Just the smell of it.

I must even get, like, the band Aid smell to it.

Little bit of that petrol note.

Yeah.

I would say even though the aromatics and the flavors of the California Rumpelstiltskin Trousseau Gris and this from Alsace, with primarily gewurched aromatics and flavors. Very different, but they have a common feeling in the mouth of structure. Tannin and fresh acid.

So very different in the beginning, but very similar in the end of the sip. If we think of the sip as beginning, middle, end, the end between the.

First two, I feel this one tastes more orangey.

Yeah. This one tastes more quote, unquote, natural. More of a natural wine.

Like that frizzante, which is sometimes a little bit of secondary fermentation happening in the bottle. If they're choosing not to use sulfur, that is often a marker of natural wine. Says it's unfiltered. It's Interesting.

Yeah.

Try it with the cheeses.

Yeah. Ann didn't help it. Still funky.

It is funky. I think it's definitely a funky wine. But we also went from new world to old world. Right. Do you like it?

It's fine. It's not. The changes in the difference between the orange peel note with the funkiness is not off putting.

I feel like it's harder maybe to pair this one than it would be the other one.

Yeah. This would have to be a little more specific from a food pairing. Not like anything I've tasted before. I'm enjoying that experience.

Cause it's like waking up my brain and my palate, like, oh, this is really different. All right, cool. Let's try the one from Spain. Tell me about what you see on the label there, sir.

Yeah. Except his barbells have barrels. Wine barrels on each side. And the name of it is Gulp Hablo. Yeah. It's interesting, right?

I don't know what that means in.

Spanish, but you should know. You're. That's why I have you here to translate. This is the palest color of the three.

I would say it's almost super pale orange with a more yellowy tint. If you were buying this thinking it was a white wine, you would think the color was just off a little bit.

This one smells good.

Yeah. This one's definitely cloudy. This seems unfiltered as well.

And I think with these orange wines, which often coincide with natural wines, but not always consumers who are seeking out these wines are more forgiving and accustomed to seeing a cloudy wine, whereas most white wine and are filtered for that clarity. Just really because of perception and nothing else. Ooh, she smells pretty.

This is a blend of equal parts Verdejo and Sauvignon Blanc, which is a common combination for the white wines of this region. And here made into an orange wine via a week of maceration on the skin. That's why the color's so pale.

Aromatics of orange blossom and tropical jackfruit with moderately tannic dried citrus peel, tea, and preserved apricots on the yeasty and textured palate.

It's good. I like the smell of it.

I love the smell of it.

And before you even told me that, I was gonna say it has that smell, even like the first one has about the stone fruit, like Sauvignon Blanc. Very you know, notes to it mixed with orange, which is interesting.

It's delicious.

Yeah.

And it has the prettiest nose for me.

The most pleasing, citrusy notes on the palate and the least amount of tannin and astringency on the back end, which would make sense because it says this was only a week of skin contact, which is why the color's light and the tan's light. Certainly lighter than the others. Yeah.

But like this one, the Rumpelstilstein would be a red grape. Is it a red grape or still a white grape? So all of them are all white grapes? Yeah.

That's what you need for orange wine. Yeah.

Okay.

Otherwise it would be. If it was made in this way with red grapes, it would be. That's the difference. This gulp Hablo is from the Castilla Mancha region in Spain.

And the alcohol is only 12.3, which is pretty low. And what I thought was interesting about this, it's not a 750 or a 3 quarter liter bottle, which is standard for wine.

It's a 1 liter bottle, so just a little bit bigger, which is cool. Yet it was the cheapest one at 18.99.

Here it says eleven and a half and you said twelve there.

Even better. This was from their website.

This is like NA wine for us.

Yeah. Basically, if it's 11 or 12% alcohol, that's basically non alcoholic for us. I like this wine. I'm gonna take another sip.

I would be interested to see if this pairs well with tacos. I would buy this one again. Of the three. I like this one.

It's interesting. It doesn't have the funky off pudding note. It's just, I think, very pretty. And I like the citrus notes of it. That's yummy. Yeah.

Let's do some chicken tacos. Cool. All right. So what do you think about orange wine?

I think they smell different and taste.

Different, but different from each other or different from these three.

All taste different from each other. Period.

Very different.

Very different regions. You got Spain, France and Russian River. So very different.

Tasting the terroir of each one of these wines and because they're all made a little different and the grapes are.

All different, I am not pouring any of these down the drain. I would enjoy any of these.

But if you ask me right now, in this moment, which one would I want to top off my glass and sit and spend some time with outside in the sun on our patio?

I would want to gulp, enable with.

Yeah.

Really fun. Cool. Thanks for tasting with me.

Thank you.

So if you were today years old when you learned what orange wine is all about, you are not alone. Now you know how it's made and what to expect and how different they can be just from the three that we had.

The Rumpelstiltskin from Russian River Valley in California, the Domain Oster Tag New chapter Vin Orange from Alsace and the super fun gulp Ablo from Spain in the screw cap. Nonetheless, one liter bottle for under $20. That is a gem.

They were all fun and interesting as you heard, but that one's probably on the top of the list. I will put the links in the show notes to all three of these wines so you can find and try them.

And if you do, please send me a note nikkiipwithnikki.com and let me know how it went.

Be sure to follow me on Instagram at Nikki Lamberty N I K K I and then Lamberty L A M B E R T I if you're not already, because I share footage of the recording and there's some posts with the orange wine labels on there. And you can also see my new puppies Lucy and Rosie. And if you follow me on Instagram as well.

We know it's delicious and all of our wonderful customers who are enjoying it have told us it's delicious, but it's also nice to have a panel of professional judges give you that validation as well. So check out our website Solavato wines.com Sollevato is S O L L E V A T O and it is Italian for joyful and uplifted.

And make sure that you use the discount code pod listener for 10% off your order and we can ship to most states in the U.S. i hope you've enjoyed learning about orange wines with me today and whatever you do between now and next week, I hope that you sip well.

It don't don't matter.