Ceci n’est pas un orange – La Biancara Pico
Simon tries to understand what Angiolino Maule means when he says he doesn’t like orange wine.
A maceration masterclass at Il Carpino – Ribolla Gialla 2011
If you want to have a masterclass in how skin contact affects white wines, there’s probably no better place than Franco and Anna Sosol’s tasting room. Il Carpino is their 17ha estate, situated on the same winding hill road as Radikon and Gravner, in Friuli Collio.
Čotar – Malvasia 2004
Branko Čotar has a very straightforward answer for me when I ask when he started using extended skin macerations for his white wines: “I’ve macerated my wines for 40 years – it’s the tradition here (in the Slovenian Kras region)”.
Orange weekly: Gravner – Breg 2004
Josko Gravner and Stanko Radikon, both hailing from Oslavje in north-eastern Friuli, pretty much kickstarted the revival of extended skin contact white wine making, in western Europe (In Georgia it has an unbroken history of 8000 years). For me, this makes uncorking a wine from either producer a special event.
Gravner’s wines are as uncompromising as they are brilliant, produced solely in Georgian qvevris (amphorae) since 2001. This bright amber coloured Breg 2004, a white blend of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling Italico and Pinot Grigio still feels youthful and rather closed.
Amphoras ahoy in Tuscany – Fattoria di Sammontana
Tuscany, and more specifically Chianti isn’t somewhere I associate with diversity. This isn’t the wine region to pick if you want the thrill of discovering unheard of grape varieties, finding weird and wonderful orange wines or small, wacky estates. What Chianti Read more
Celebrating intoxification at Domaine Canet-Valette
“Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think, And at the same time make it sin to drink? Give thanks to Him who foreordained it thus– Surely He loves to hear the glasses clink!” Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, 91st quatrain, Read more
Oh Balls! (Or how customer service saved the day)
Picture the scene – four old friends, and we’ve just passed a convivial evening in a restaurant. It’s Thursday night, 9.30pm, no-one’s ready to go home but at the same time a change of scenery is called for. Oh yes, and Read more
Exotic Agiorgitiko
The Greek wine industry could have done without the nation having a financial crisis, it was hardly having an easy ride as things were. This is a shame, because there is much high quality wine-making on both the mainland and Read more
Friday night at Green and Blue – Bressan Schioppettino 2004 and Pintia 2006
Someone said to me recently that Friday night was all the excuse they needed to celebrate with a fine wine. I decided to put this excellent philosophy into practice last night and recruited a few friends to repair to Green Read more