Orange wine. It’s been a trending thing for a while now, with a few select bottles and glasses appearing on some of the better Italian lists around town, like SPQR, Heirloom Café, and Locanda. Now Delfina is featuring a flight of orange wines this week for you to compare and contrast, and to introduce the uninitiated into this fairly unusual — but delicious — category of white wine.
Just to explain, making orange wine is essentially the opposite of the process used to make rosé. With rosé, the skins of red grapes are removed quickly before fermentation, leaving just the pink hue of the juice and little to no tannins. Orange wine, popular especially in parts of Italy, is made with white grapes fermented with the skins on, adding greater depth, color, and complexity to the wine, which often has an almost orange or bright orange hue. Also, the skins act as a preservative that makes the use of sulfur unnecessary, so for the sulfite-sensitive, these wines are for you.
Delfina’s orange-wine flight is being offered starting tonight, July 9, through Wednesday July 11, and includes four wines, with two from Italy and two from California. They are:
2009 Lucques “Blanc,” North Coast, California
2010 Foradori “Fontansanta,” Nosiola, Alto Adige
2009 Salinia “Robinia” Sauvignon Blanc, Russian River
2005 Zidarich “Vitovska” Carso, Friuli
50 Shades of Orange [Delfina]