Orange wine has the strange distinction of sounding both very new and very old.
The name is relatively modern. The principle is not.
In conventional white winemaking, juice is normally separated from the grape skins early. Curtimenta keeps them together, allowing colour, tannin, aroma and texture from the skins to become part of the wine.
The result sits somewhere between familiar categories. It begins with white grapes, but can acquire some of the structure and grip we associate with red wine.
That possibility fascinated us.
We had tasted skin-contact and orange wines around the world long before we made our own. We knew what excited us, and perhaps just as importantly, what did not.
At Standing Fox, Avesso gives breadth and depth, while Arinto contributes acidity and tension. Extended skin contact changes both. Our orange remains with its skins for months rather than days, building texture and structure while we work to preserve freshness and precision.
There is no virtue in extraction for its own sake. More colour, tannin or time does not automatically mean more character.
The difficult part is knowing when enough is enough.
What emerged from our own cellar surprised us. Our orange wine has become one of the wines we are proudest of at Standing Fox.
We are hardly impartial judges. But of all the orange wines we have tasted around the world, this is the one we most want to drink.
For us, that is ultimately the test.
