Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines
Skin contact traminers are a bit like London buses – you don’t see one for ages, then all of a sudden, two appear at once. I discovered this Czech beauty from Milan Nestarec at last week’s Raw Fair – always an inspiring event, and a fertile hunting ground for orange wines.
Every week, I select an orange wine (a white wine made with extended skin contact) that grabbed my attention. View the whole series here. There’s a bit of a myth that aromatic white varieties don’t work well with extended skin Read more
This wine is one of relatively few standard bearers for the extended skin contact revival that’s not from Collio or Slovenian Brda. La Stoppa are based in Emilia Romagna, home to a rich, meaty cuisine and of course Lambrusco. Elena Pantaleoni makes this blend of Malvasia di Candia Aromatic, Ortugo and Trebbiano in honour of the estate’s founder Giancarlo Ageno.
Aleks Klinec is brutally honest when I ask about his decision to switch entirely to traditional long skin maceration in 2005 – making only “orange wines” instead of some conventional white wines which were still in the portfolio: “We lost the entire Slovenian market – but it didn’t matter, because these wines sell well in the UK, Australia, US and so on”.