An "orange" wine for Autumn and Halloween

Orange wine has been on the rise in terms of availability and popularity for a long time now. When I first started getting into wine about 15 years ago, it was really hard to find orange wines. I was scoping out wines from northern Italy, Georgia, and Spain to find odd but delightful skin-fermented wines. Some of them were a bit, as I like to say, “feral” for the average palate – bracing, taut, spicy, volatile, sometimes overly earthy or just wild. And while I still like some of those orange wines, the accessibility and diversity of these wines has grown with their popularity. And I think that’s a good thing.

Isn't Autumn great? Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC. October 27, 2023

Basically, an “orange” wine is generally a “white” grape that spends some duration of time in contact with the skins, a process which extracts colors and other textural elements similar to how one makes a “red” wine. Just like white wines aren’t white, orange wines aren’t orange. Like a diverse deciduous forest at this time of year, orange wines come in all sorts of fascinating colors.

I recently tasted a wine that sums up what I’m trying to say about orange wines. It’s delicious, accessible, but has a lot of interesting characteristics. And its price makes it a great place to start diving into the world of orange wines. From Kivelstadt Cellars, I have a single-vineyard, skin-fermented Pinot Grigio from a single vineyard in California’s Clarksburg appellation, beside the Sacramento River. I visited this area near Sacramento a few years ago, and was impressed by the diversity of old vines and different varieties, and I fell in love with the old school California, blue collar, farming scene, one that produces legit wines. Pinot Grigio is a great grape for skin contact, the this “gray” grape’s skin provides a lot of depth, flavor, and color to extract. This wine was macerated on the skins for 13 days, then pressed and fermented in old oak for six months.

This wine was received as a sample and tasted sighted.

2022 KivelStadt Cellars Skin-Fermented Pinot Grigio Wayward Son Pintail Ranch - USA, California, Central Valley, Clarksburg
$35
A deep copper/watermelon. The nose exudes a mix of watermelon rind, cantaloupe, limes, with chunky pineapples, mixed with cool tones of white flowers, sea salt, chalk dust, and some honey vibes. The palate is ripe and vibrant with flavors of white cherries, raspberries, strawberries, and orange peels. The fruit is accented with tones of rhubarb, floral perfume, celery seed, watermelon candy, honeyed tea, all sorts of cool flavors and textures to enjoy and parse through. Lots of fun, food-friendly, and a great wine to bring to a Halloween party. (90 points)