Why Orange Wines Capture the Essence of Fall | David Williams

Lagar de Costa Albariño Natural, Rías Baixas, Spain 2021 (£21, botteapostle.com; shrinetothevine.co.uk) There is something absolutely in tune with the season in the orange wines, a new category in wine shops (or, more accurately, since they are based on the revival of an old wine-making tradition, a "new-old" category). Partly it has to do with color: wherever they are on the spectrum from light gold to full amber, to use the palette of shades adopted by Britain's leading importer of orange wines, Les Caves de Pyrene, they are reminiscent of a shade of leaf in an autumn wood. But the orange-autumn connection is also about the range of flavors and textures you'll find in orange wines, which often have something of the orchard about them: even if the wines don't taste like apple, pear, quince or stone fruit (as they often do), they usually have a Cox's apple flavor and a tannic chewiness, as is the case with Galician producer Lagar de Costa's magnificent rendition, who adds also a touch of zesty citrus and salty minerals to the mix.

Fabien Jouves Skin Contact, France 2020 (from £28, brettshop.co.uk; corkandcask. co.uk) Orange wines are effectively white wines in that they are made from white grapes but, rather than separating the juice from the skins before fermentation, winemakers choose to let the wine macerate for weeks or months on the skins. It gives orange wines their red wine like tannin, plus the panoply of spices, nuts and herbs and dried flowers, even hop notes that fans of the style (and I include myself in that club ) find so appealing. How long maceration takes depends a lot on the winemaker: the team of siblings behind Lagar de Costa give their albariño grapes several weeks of maceration, for example. Fabien Jouves, who makes a range of superb natural-leaning wines (red, white and orange) in the Cahors region of south-west France, gives his blend of local varietals Ugni Blanc, Gros Manseng and Muscat d 'Alexandre, three months to bring the flavors of fresh dried tropical fruits and crisp tannins to his wonderful Skin Contact, which was lovely in 2020 and even better in 2021 about to hit the market.

< p class="dcr-kpil6a">Macerao Naranjo Orange Wine, Itata, Chile 2021 (£8.99, Waitrose) The modern orange wine trend has its roots in northeast Italy and the modern master of style OG Josko Gravner, who turned to ancient ways of making wine with the skins in traditional clay amphoras. The fashion has spread all over the world, and my recent favorites range from Dario Princic in Friuli to Menexes in Crete and Domaine Bohn in Alsace. Gravner himself was inspired by the amphorae tradition in Georgia and Armenia, and Georgia's modern clay winemaking scene is the source of many of the best contemporary orange wines. A superb and (for a style that isn't always the easiest to find or cheapest to buy) relatively accessible introduction to the Georgian qvevri style, in which wine is both macerated and fermented on the skins in pots in traditional buried clay pots called qvevri, I was very impressed with the relatively pale and elegant yet intensely fragrant Qvevris Kisi Orange Wine 2021 (£14.99, at 40 Waitrose stores from November). Meanwhile, the same retailer has the delightfully floral and slightly grippy Chilean Macerao.

Follow David Williams on Twitter @Daveydaibach