There's a Method in the Orangeness

Using Paris wine bar culture as his mise-en-scène, Thor has written a forceful piece on the encroaching, seemingly self-imposed ghettoization of the natural wine movement. It's his contribution to 32 Days of Natural Wine, and it's a dense and weighty one, so make sure to allow yourself a meaningful chunk of time to work through it (if you haven't done so already). It'll be time well spent.

In a much lighter sense, my friend Jeremy and I seem to have formed our own little accidental ghetto, drinking and writing about (or around) the same wines at roughly the same time with pleasantly surprising yet entirely random frequency. In yesterday's post about a new sushi spot in Austin, TX, he poured the very same wine I'd hoped to write about yesterday. Time got away from me then, so here ya go....

One of these days, we'll actually have to open a bottle together, pal.

Umbria Bianco IGT "Santa Chiara," Paolo Bea 2008
$45. 13.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, New York, NY.
Bea's "Santa Chiara" makes for a fantastic introduction (initiation, if you prefer) to the world of so-called orange wine. It's a blend of six twenties — 20% Grechetto, 20% Malvasia, 20% Sauvignon, 20% Garganega and 20% Chardonnay, all fermented on their skins for 20 days. The end result is a wine both bracingly tannic and immensely savory. A perfect choice for inclusion in a course on white wine and structure. One could make an argument that it's also an example of technique trumping terroir, but a case could just as easily be made to the contrary.

In either case, the results speak for themselves, as the wine is not just intensely structured but also downright delicious. Sticking my nose in the glass conjured up one of those unmistakable if distant scent-triggered memories — of a gas station at the sea shore, with diesel/feusal scents offering counterpoint to aromas of fresh, salty sea air. Compelling juice, indeed.