Orange Bubbly?

J

Joel Stewart

Joel Stewart
Does it exist?

I had a microbrew the other night that lit my limbic (not lambic) system up...it felt/smelt/tasted like an orange wine in fruitful aromatics and biting tannic bitters, but it had bubbles. That got me to thinking.
 
Camillo Donati Malvasia Frizzante Secco, perhaps?

I think in general the problem would be skin contact accentuating tannins, which would then be again accentuated by the structure of a bubbly beverage.
 
those sound like logical reasons, but why would they stop an orange winemaker...any more than, say, a c.franc bubbly maker?
 
C de Noci Querciole isn't orange wine, but it is rather cloudy and quite funky, and it might satisfy that jones.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Levi's Donati is the only one I've had. I just found a bunch of it cheap, too.
Click to expand...

what vintage? i find the 07 more giving than the 08, but maybe that's because it has had more time in the bottle...
 
The wine needs time in the bottle. The '06 was much more giving than the '07 back when the '07 had recently been released. For me, the '06 was absolutely tremendous at that time, in fact. I really have liked the '07, increasingly so, with time. But the '06 was amazing. It had the old label as well, which I preferred. The '08 just seems young to me. Even the way it is, it is still an amazing value.

I use the wine as a litmus test at the restaurant. It is often given gratis to chefs from out of town, visiting wine folk, etc. Their reaction to it tells me where we should go in terms of their wine preferences. Weirdly, not a few people never finish a glass. The color, perhaps, throws them. I find the wine amazingly refreshing, but deep at the same time.

I don't think it keeps so well in an open bottle. The best pour is always from a just opened bottle. It really makes a difference to the balance of the wine.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
I use the wine as a litmus test at the restaurant. It is often given gratis to chefs from out of town, visiting wine folk, etc.
Click to expand...

that's the first time i had it. thanks again!
 
sorry, i wasn't clear about my intention...

while of course i'm interested in trying an orange bubbly....my (not well stated) initial line of inquiry was more aimed at this:

why did a microbeer remind me of an orange wine?
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Orange Bubbly?
Does it exist?

I had a microbrew the other night that lit my limbic system up (not lambic)...it felt/smelt/tasted like an orange wine in fruitful aromatics and biting tannic bitters, but it had bubbles. That got me to thinking.
Click to expand...

Joel:

Shion Winery in Yamanashi (Makioka, to be exact) makes a sparkler from Koshu base wine that is fermented on skins.
The wine is methode ancestrale (as opposed to champenoise), and is never clarified, so care must be taken in serving. Very interesting, and very reminiscent of the beery, lambic style you're talking about.

It's called Clematis.
If you buy, make sure it's the Clematis white and not their rose sparkler. The latter is made from the Kyoho grape, and so is very different in style.
Winery website URL is here: http://4-wine.net/ (Japanese language only).

Cheers,

ITB dis-claimer: I know the young guy behind this operation. He's a good friend.
 
Bruce, thanks.

the m.a. koshu sounds really interesting....(not to digress, but in the right hands, koshu can be amazing). i'll give that one a try.

as for the phenols...ok, i get part of that, but red wines also pack phenols and they don't elicit the same response in me....thus my orange wine line of inquiry with the microbeer....

of course my palate could just be skewed in a strange way, but maybe i'm really talking about a perceived hoppy element in these orange wines...moreso than a phenolic one?
 
Joel:

Just recalled that Chateau Lumiere (again in Yamashi) also makes a petillant from a macerated white base wine. The wine is called "Orangee" (there's an accent in there somewhere, can't figure out how to do that), appropriately enough, and is also made from Koshu.

URL is here: http://www.lumiere.jp/wine/petillant/wine03_or08.html

Same cautions apply vis-a-vis ITB connections.

Re: phenols, red vs orange wine.... the ratios of different phenolics are not the same. In a finished orange wine, aromatic phenolics are more important. As are the results of oxidation reactions involving phenolics.
With reds the sensory contribution of volatile phenols is smaller (even if quantitiatively they may be larger). And the large oxygen absorption capacity represented by the larger mass of total phenols means red wines show less oxidative characters.

Or maybe not.
 
It might be worth noting that there may be some yeast produced aromas that are prompting your
impression. Recently I was enjoying a yeasty Belgian Tripel and was struck by aromas reminiscent of
of mature ros Champagne and to a lesser extent mature red Burgundy. The only explanation I could conjure up was yeast related.
 
Joel: People say the Donati reminds them of a beer all the time. I hear that maybe once an evening or so. The Donati is not disgorged, so I chalk it up to the yeast character and the color. But you didn't come at the connection that way, so I don't know what is bringing up the beer bells for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top