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Orange wines many sommelier's salvation

Lisa Cardelli AIS sommelier born in Lucca and now in Melbourne explains Orange wines, a niche category, non academic and often looked upon with scepticism

Lisa Cardelli AIS Sommelier

By Lisa Cardelli

My first experience with an orange wine was in 2010 when I was not yet an AIS sommelier and I was lucky to work in Sydney as Commis Sommelier in an Italian restaurant. From their very interesting wine list I chose, one day, the only bottle left, and for a long time unsold, of the  Denavolo Dinavolo from Romagna, I was mostly curious that there could be an orange coloured wine, rather than by its name. My first impression was that the wine was awfully oxidized and undrinkable!

Decanting Orange wines

At the same time its tannic structure and full taste left me perplexed and brought me to talk about this wine for days, without being able to come to conclusions about its quality

Since then I have been more and more curious about this category of wines. Here are some that I have tasted.

Future consumtion, between exclusivity, nature and technology

Wine Intelligence presented the Global Consumer Trends & Category, the show a frenetic world that swings between localism ethics wellness and exclusivity

Selfie tour in Paris proposed by the Mandarin Hotel

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9 trends on the up around the world do show a lifestyle in rapid evolution where technology plays an always more important part

Instant – examples go from wine served in plastic cups to the app in Starbucks to order coffee and pay with your mobile phone

Active – to be involved. Do you remember the bucket of frozen water- the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Customized Coca Cola

Among the good involving things an example the English winery Chapel Down offers visitors the possibility of taking home a vine or the opportunity to create a wine. Much more attractive the proposal by the French Mon Potager who allow the possibility to have a vegetable garden at a distance, the wine lovers chooses which vegetables to plant, how to cultivate them, and then receive them at home when they are ready to be eaten.

Sensory – “multisensoriality”, here we go from an electric shock which allows future dads to feel the pains of childbirth felt by their companion, to the apparatus that transmits noises and odours. A lot better is the “sonic wine bar” in New Zealand that matches music to wine tastings.

The US wine lovers, buy a lot but don't share on social networks

The Wine Spectator online survey judges the importance of social media for those who buy and rink high quality wines

expensive wine

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34% of consumers of luxury wines do not use a social media network to get information about wine,  33% use  Facebook, only 13% Twitter and still less (11%) prefer Instagram images. This is the result of the Wine Spectator online survey, the major wine magazine in the world.

The powerful American magazine, who conveys to top consumers from the world’s elite of wine lovers, uses internet without refrain and does not disdain using social media, quite the contrary. The Wine Spectator Twitter account has 168.000 followers and it very well organized.

The survey reveals a consumer who is very knowledgeable about wines: 53% happily buy a wine when they know the winery of province, so they do not base their choice on the appellation, the price or the grape variety, but they choose a brand.

La Cantina di Paul, in other words the wine suite

From the  Campo carpenters  and from Paolo Valdastri connoisseur of worldwide wines here is a bottle rack that every wine lover will want

La Cantina di Paul

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It resembles a giant treasure chest so refined are the finishing touches and the technology necessary to protect the precious contents from light, heat and most of all from thieves. This wine suite is called La Cantina di Paul, a small room for excellent bottles completely different from those we are used to seeing in luxury restaurants or in magazines for the furnishings of billionaires homes. Those are in fact iron and crystal bunkers, functional but decidedly bleak, la cantina di Paul is a masterpiece of cabinetmaking handicraft, a wooden treasure chest carved and inlaid, about two metres by two which conveys cheerfulness and the love of wine. It is born form a meeting of people with different origins and cultures.

Divorce party and divorce wines with bubbles

With this new trend of having a divorce party, now the comedian Jeff Wysaski, suggests the best wine: Champagne to be matched with a different cake

Wine for divorce

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This news come from the “Huffpost taste” the wine and food sections of  Huffington Post, the largest online daily in the world who has found out the suggestions given by Jeff Wysaski regarding wines. You know the plastic tabs along the shelves in the supermarket, where the price and some explanations of the variety of grape, the production area appear? Well Jeff Wysaski has decided to create a small devolution by writing fun things on them sometimes provocative and sometimes transgressive. So here is a wine that <<guarantees suburban mom drunk>> something to appease hate <<instead o fan old ritual with blood for your enemies use this Merlot, it is so intense that Satan will not know the difference>>. To celebrate the signing of the divorce papers he suggests Champagne to be consumed while eating all sorts of sweet things << Congratulations sheet cakes and starting over>>.

The true story behind Supertuscan wines

These were born 40 years ago as a reaction to tradition. They are with French varieties and also blended with Sangiovese and aged in barriques.

Giacomo Tachis

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Tignanello Sassicaia, Ornellaia … the Super Tuscans come about during a moment of crisis for Chianti practically as an explosion of desire for renovation and internationality. Their creator were the geniuses, Giacomo Tachis wine maker and talent scout, and  James Suckling the great wine taster who at that time judged Italian wines for  Wine Spectator.

Tignanello-and-Antinori-and-Kemp

In 1968 the  Marchese Incisa plants on his clayaey hills in Bolgheri, on the Tuscan coast, Cabernet and Merlot vines from which will come the most famous of the  Super Tuscan wines: Sassicaia. In  1970 his cousin Antinori adds Cabernet to his Tignanello. In 1985  Ornellaia and a year after Masseto.

These are the stars that crate the trend of  high quality Tuscan table wines with a price and a clientele decidedly superior to the DOC wines of the same region. Trendy, greatly appreciated by the press and by collector all over the world, they begin now to be symbols of Italian sophistication  such as Gucci, Ferragamo and Prada. 

For Wine Tourism The winner is…..

Drinks International awards the best 8 Visitor centres in wine Worldwide On the podium South African Portuguese, Chilean and Spanish Wineries, only Zonin for Italy

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Bodega Gonzàles Byass

A jury reunited in London by Drinks International including: Nicky Forrest, director of PR company Phipps, Ian Harris, chief executive of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, Emma Roberts, director of PR company Eviva, Hannah Silverman, communications and PR executive with Wine Australia, Christian Davis, editor, Drinks International, chose an international array of wineries putting particular attention on the educational aspect of the winery visit and the food and sport and even theatrical experiences which accompany the introduction to the wine world The South African bowls  all the other  right over as do those wineries that have enormous resources and structures.

Spier Wine Farm

Here are the winners of the 8 categories

Best Visitor Centre -Winner – Viu Manent Chile this is probably the less convincing choice

The judges particularly liked the horse element with or without a chariot along 37 km of vineyards there is also a wine school for young wine lovers, shopping of local handicraft, typical food ad obviously guided tours and tastings. Nothing out of this world except for the horses as there are even the stables.

Blonde beers go pink, here come the girls

Beer seems to be a man’s world but, in truth, in Egyptian times it was women who made it and today there are many breweries run by women We can do it 

We can do it FemAle Sweden

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It was a German nun who once realized that adding hops made beer last longer and this permitted the beginning of industrial productions of the famous blonde beers. Women have had an important role in the history of beer, including the goddess Nin Kasi who overlooked its production by the Babylonians and today they are beginning to be important even in the very masculine world of breweries.

Meg-Gill

 The Drinks business has put in a row the top 10 calling them  “brewsister” as was done in the medieval guilds.

They can be found all over the place, Australia, UK, USA, Sweden…. Italy. They are often born from small artisanal breweries, during the last 20 years, and in the majority of cases after the year 2000. All these wineries have had a boom in growth of around 20% per year. Women owned breweries  win prizes, just as  Sara Barton does, brewer of the year 2012  in UK and with the many medals won by the The Waen Brewery belonging to Sue Hayward. Women are begin to appear in the button rooms for great conglomerates , like Emma Gilleland is head brewer, the first woman in 179 years, of the British brewery Marston,  and  Gwen Conley is production manager of the  Port Brewing in California as well as being a very famous beer taster. These stories always tell of courageous women, like the youngest female Brewster in the US , Meg Gill or  Kim Jordan CEO of the third largest artisanal brewery in USA, the New Belgium Brewing Company.