The high quality of the contributions to this site’s Comments Section (and the massive engagement levels the rest of the site attracts) have prompted a rethink.
Many friends have been won by the usefulness of the recommendations provided but many wine enthusiasts seem to be ready for something more.
Contributions to the Comments go well beyond “which wine to drink” and have developed into a mutually supportive community.
So, to extend things a bit MidWeeker Richard kindly wrote a piece about inexpensive pinot noir – and it attracted a very high response rate.
Today, then, another regular contributor, MidWeeker Paul, has gone even further off-piste with something that adds atmosphere as well as wine recommendations.
After that, I have added a piece about a style that seems to pose quite a number of questions – including “fad” or “start of a new trend”?
I hope that both pieces work for you and do feel free to let me know your thoughts or, better still, to offer your own particular “something different”.
The images and hyperlinks provided should help you to find the wines in crowded displays.
Making a Drama from a Cru-sis (by Paul)
It’s a very hot summer day in Cefalu, Sicily – a charming town on the face of it; but it has an edge, unpredictable, could I even sense a hint of menace?
You walk past a black and white Banksy type wall mural of a ne’er do well, with writing in Italian.
Pushing your basic language skills to the limit, you translate it as “Beware of men who wear sunglasses”.
You find a balcony chair overlooking the blue sea and a man strides straight towards you …. and he is wearing sun glasses!
But, first, we need a flashback.
So, let’s go back to a dank winter day in Chester where 80 or so wine enthusiasts are trying out Wine Society wines.
The first table has some English wines: nice, dainty, grassy, drizzle, elderflowers, Morris Dancing … Morris Minor perhaps.
The next table introduces us to Feudo Arancio of Sicilia and, immediately, we have Alfa Romeo.Vroom…
... And wines demanding exploration.
First up is their Feudo Arancio Grillo (13% abv and £7.95 from The Wine Society) – an easy drinking, slightly off dry white; ideal summer drinking.
Apricot and salt sprinkled grapefruit are its main flavours, making it a great alternative to many a lack lustre pinot grigio.
The vineyard is close to the sea and katabatic winds cool the grapes at night and, as this is an area of severe water shortage, drip irrigation is used.
Here is the necessary link … https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/feudo-arancio-grillo-sicilia-2023
And its partner
Second up is The Society’s Sicilian Reserve Red 2020 (13.5% abv and £8.95) -same producer but nero d’avola grapes (grown near Ragusa – Inspector Montalbano swims here).
This is medium bodied red wine infused with raspberry and cherry flavours, partly aged in French oak – but barrel influences are barely noticeable on the palate.
It even has a touch of chocolate on the finish, and well worth paying the extra £1 or so, as an upgrade to their standard red.
Here is the necessary link … https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/the-societys-sicilian-reserve-red-2020
Meanwhile, though, remember the man in sunglasses.
So back to Cefalu and the man is poised … he brings something black out of his pocket.
Here, decisions have consequences.
Quickly, you plump for the grillo today – and undertake to return tomorrow to try the nero d’avola.
The waiter puts his pen away ……. and all is right in the world.
Editor’s Note:
Thank you, Paul, for something completely different – and nicely atmospheric.
Indeed, Paul is quite right to call attention to those Wine Society examples of grape varieties that are not in the Top 15 of the world’s most popular grapes.
If you want High Street examples of what these varieties are all about, here are my “gateway selections”.
2023 Vito Mameli Grillo (from £7.99 at Majestic and 12.5% abv):
Fresh with impressive depth, it exhibits textured greengage, pear and baked apple flavours combined with lively lemon acidity, hints of green herbs and an underlying savoury twist.
Here is the necessary link … https://www.majestic.co.uk/wines/vito-mameli-grillo-73903
2022 Terre Di Faiano Organic Nero D’Avola (£10.99 at Waitrose and 14%):
Using appassimento techniques (hence the extra depth, alcohol and price), this offers us smooth but sweet edged cherry, damson and loganberry flavours.
These are accompanied by good acidity, aromas of roses, muted tannin, traces of cocoa and allspice but with a savoury liquorice backdrop too.
They are both sound illustrations that give a broad idea of the style – to help you decide whether to consider other examples of the variety including some at slightly higher prices.
Here is the necessary link … https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/terre-di-faiano-organic-nero-davola/702487-726456-726457
Will I like Orange Wine?
Orange wine has been around for centuries but has attracted increased attention as interest grew in traditional winemaking techniques.
It differs from orthodox white wine because the skins remain in contact with the juice during fermentation.
This colours the resulting wine and adds tannin and extra flavours (nuttiness and other savoury components are typical).
But will it appeal to me?
Illogical as it seems (because red wine is, after all, made this way), the answer is not clear cut.
Maybe it is tannin in white or, possibly, just unfamiliarity but the first impression for many is not always positive.
But, then, who instantly fell in love with “Best Bitter” on first taste?
However, orange wine does have an enthusiastic following among the instinctive “first adopters” in the wine press corps.
But will it resonate with the wine drinking equivalent of the “person on the Clapham omnibus”?
Here, then, are my thoughts on accessible and relatively inexpensive versions that you might like to try to answer that question.
You can then decide for yourselves whether it really is a sustainable new trend about to become mainstream.
First comes this one
2022 Vin Orange Gros Manseng (Currently £7.50 – instead of £8.25 – at Asda and 12% abv):
For a while now Asda have led the big High Street retailers by selling this version -made by the respected Rigal operation.
It uses what at first sight is a very appropriate grape (gros manseng) and is the darkest of the three wines that I tried – rather like dessert wine in appearance.
It has minty aromas behind its tangerine and orange peel flavours that pick up mace and allspice influences and, then, an almost volcanic savouriness.
Here is the necessary link …https://groceries.asda.com/product/all-other-grapes/gros-manseng-vin-orange/1000383164113
Moving on
2022 Orange Sunset (£7.99 at Lidl while stocks last and 13%):
The latest Lidl Wine Tour includes an orange wine that is the same vintage as the Rigal one.
Rich and smooth, it delivers textured oriental fruit, apricot and pineapple flavours coupled with suggestions of sultana and a pink grapefruit acidity that constrains any underlying sweetness.
Here is the necessary link … https://www.lidl.co.uk/p/orange-sunset/p10016059
And finally
2023 Cȏté Mas Orange Vin de France: (£9.99 at Waitrose and 13%):
This is the most savoury of the trio and probably the closest to orthodox white wines in flavour.
Savoury elements that provide those important first impressions slowly open into rounded (but still quite subtle) ripe nectarine flavours.
Hints of sweet spice and apple blossom quickly join in, but the wine never entirely deserts that sea shell based savoury edge.
Here is the link you need … https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/cote-mas-vin-orange/992414-828102-828103
Overall Thoughts.
Probably, Orange Sunset is the best option to decide whether orange wine is for you. It is rounded, well-crafted and has a diverse range of flavours.
Personally – as one quite fond of Grand Marnier liqueur – the Rigal option at Asda has considerable attraction.
Finally, if sweetness does not appeal to you, choose the more subtle and savoury wine from Jean-Claude Mas.
My next post (on Monday) resumes a more orthodox format with the usual terrific recommendations of Top Tips for you.
18 responses
A few things sprang to mind whilst reading your excellent article, Paul (thanks).
We used to have a rather nervous family joke, when in Italy. If you come across any nicely suited gentlemen, wearing sunglasses and carrying violin cases, then we should cross the road, or turn back, and definitely not stare at them!
I used to wear reactolite spectacles, and our main meeting room had wide glass windows on 3 sides. I caught my reflection when entering one sunny day and realised that I looked like a member of the mafia – which wasn’t in tune with my gentle management style. I’ve never chosen these lenses since.
Years ago, when visiting Oxford, I was taken aback by the many references to Inspector Morse. There were Morse Trails, signs outside pubs saying Morse drank here in episodes x & y, etc. I understand that there are similar signs referencing Montalbano in Ragusa? When travelling once on a bus in Naples, we saw a chap who was a dead ringer for Inspector Montalbano. I can still recall the collective yearning sighs from the lady passengers “of a certain age”!
Hello Richard,
Thanks for the kind comments.I never understood why Inspector Montalbano was such a hit with the ladies. Short, bald, bow legged,unfaithful- but he still had it, whatever it is!
Also, Paul, I’ve heard a rumour that you have been co-opted to fly out to Spain and back, tonight, for a short wine tasting.
You have an enviable lifestyle!
Ah yes.. the Co-op Zoom event. I hear that Sarah is actually in Spain this time.
Great story Paul, and your recommendations sound interesting. I am a fairly new member of this excellent community and have savoured a number of suggested wines my favourite so far being the Roditis Sauvignon Blanc featured in Asda’s Wine Atlas collection. Looking forward to trying more offerings.
Welcome aboard Brenda – always good to have new subscribers joining the Comments section. Yes I rated that Greek white too although each of the Wine Atlas wines has a keen following. Keep letting us all know what you think.
Thank you Paul for the imaginative way you draw our attention to these two Sicilian wines. It was also a lovely reminder of Cefalu where we enjoyed a great Sicilian holiday some years ago too. I find one of the real pleasures of Italian wine is the sheer variety of grape varieties and know that I have commented on the MWW site before about my personal discovery of southern Italian reds made from 100% susumaniello or frappato. Grillo is also a white favourite.
With regard to orange wine I’m still very much at the novice stage so your suggestions today Brian are most welcome. Back in January I tried the Luis Felipe Edwards Macerao Naranjo Orange Wine from Chile after Joanna Simon recommended it as her WOTW. My view at the time was that it was ‘interesting’ although I haven’t been sufficiently drawn to it to try it again. Nevertheless, if anyone wants to add it to their “accessible and relatively inexpensive orange wines to try“ list it’s worth knowing that it’s currently discounted to £7.99 from £8.99 in Waitrose until 20 August.
I think many folk are indeed at the “novice stage” with Orange Wine, so any tips that help decision- making are very welcome. Thanks for adding that Chilean option to the possibilities.
I had tried a few orange wines in the past and the style has not really appealed. I was inspired to try another – the Lidl offering – and on trying this I realised why I disliked orange wine. The first sip was enchanting and I found the various fruit flavours described by the second sip the appeal had diminished and by the second glass all I was tasting was the grapefruit/acidity part of its profile.
I concluded that orange wine, like sour beer, can sometimes be good for the first glass but definitely not for a second glass.
Thanks for the article.
Hi Nick and many thanks for joining the site’s Comments Section. Now you mention it, I do recognise the point you make as I have also found that a bottle of orange wine – even with a firm top and refrigeration – seldom tastes as good on Day Two. That seems illogical since it is made in the same way as red wine – where Day Two is often better than Day One. Perhaps a chemist among subscribers will have an explanation.
Hello Brian,
Some thoughts and application of the scientific method from a former Chemistry teacher of thirty years.!
Orange wine is not red wine.
Orange wine is still essentially white wine.
White wine goes downhill much quicker than red wine.
Many producers of orange wines are into minimal intervention,low sulphur.This low level of technology makes it very difficult to produce consistently good wines at volume.
Perhaps some of the wines were not very well made in the first place?
Isn’t taste strange? I found the first sip of the Lidl Orange Sunset much dryer than I had expected from Brian’s review but it seemed to me to get sweeter – not more acidic – on subsequent glasses. As an Orange wine novice, I was surprisingly impressed. Many other examples I’ve seen pictured look unappetisingly cloudy and opaque but this had a brilliant clarity .
Those perceptions are strange to reconcile as you say David. It may be influenced by what has been eaten just before or it may simply be a random trick the body plays on us. Either way, I felt that wine was a good illustration of the style and a benchmark for folk to decide whether orange wine is a no-no or something worth exploring. Sounds as if you are teetering towards the latter. If so, do try that Asda one.
Interesting, skilful and entertaining writing here Paul.
And then Richard and Keith gives us their recollections too. Seems this is a place steeped in memories, and evocation for wine, mine included.
40 years of going to all parts of of Italy, involvement in many guises from wine, food, travel, holidays, friendships, work, football grounds and a love of the ambience, its cities, towns and countryside. When we cannot be there bodily, viewed instead from a seat in front of a television.
Genial Francesco da Mosto guiding us around his native Venice or Stanley Tucci doing his foody tours. Or indeed the fictional Commissario Montalbano having us believe that of all the murders and crime in Ragusa but few attaching to the actions of the Cosa Nostra! So where did they go?
A required suspension of disbelief, and ok, I’m happy to go there, even where the inspector’s unlikely and incomparably weird staff are concerned. Only in Sicily can the village idiot, Argente Catarella, get a job as a policeman … except …
The real truth of the matter when it comes to many things Italian, Sicilian, can be very strange indeed.
I took an insightful 3 hour bus ride from Palermo a few years ago, across that extent of Sicily that can only be described as desolate and very hot away from the coast, almost without charm but hugely atmospheric when it comes to isolated hilltop villages where we still might believe Michael Corleone hangs out, impossible in such bright sunlight to be without ”those sunglasses”, to spend a few hours in Catania, Sicily’s second city, a typical busy port on the Ionian Sea close to Mount Etna.
Naturally a pizza Frutti di Mara was consumed for lunch and washed down with a carafe of locally produced grillo bianco or maybe carricante. Can’t be sure what but when in Rome … errrrrr ….
Retuning to Palermo a bizarre juxtaposition was to visit to the Catacombe dei Cappuccini and see hundreds of middle class mummified bodies dressed in their Sunday best propped-up along the walls of the crypt and something even more than just bizarre, a 100 year old baby’s corpse complete with baby bonnet in its pram was there for all to see too!! These are the feted and privileged unburied that could be visited and met face to face by their relatives, long after they’d departed this life!
Seriously we can’t make up stuff like this. No one would believe us …. But I’m glad I took a look …. Oh, and the wine was very nice too.
Sadly I don’t have a positive opinion on this orange wine stuff. It doesn’t engage me and what I’ve had I thought money better spent on investigating more obscure, indigenous Italian whites instead. But as ever it’s a personal opinion and it’s out there for others to enjoy if they will.
Happy weekend drinking everyone. TWS order just came … their latest vintage of the Societies Portuguese red … and another bottle of the Spätburgunder Bio Ruppertsberg!!
Yet more fabulous atmospheric stuff Eddie; thank you. Understand your view on Orange Wine – and suspect you are not alone.
Hi Brian.
I participated in last night’s co-op “Zoom” tasting (actually the “Microsoft Teams” equivalent) of 2 Spanish Granacha wines.
These tastings are great – they pre announce two wines, which you can pop into a co-op and buy, and then open them in the comfort of your own home and get the background stories from the producers and the coop buyer, Sarah Benson. You can online comment and/or post questions. You can be visible on the screen, or disable your camera and lurk in the background – hence be free to eat, drink & watch! So a real “low ceremony” way of getting into tasting events. The tastings are free, but you have to register, and be a member of the central coop (not your local one). Bit of a clunky process, but once you attend one, they give a link for the next event.
I would happily recommend both wines.
(1) Red: Old Vine Garnacha, Campo de Borja, 14% @ £6.59. A rather plain looking bottle languishing on the bottom shelf of my store. It very modestly doesn’t give a vintage, so assumed it was NV. But in fact is a 2022 vintage from vines over 40 years old. It is “seasoned” by the addition of 5% Syrah. Lovely juicy red fruits, not too jammy – only 2.4 grams/litre residual sugar.
(2) Rose: 2023 Irresistible “Solo” Dry Garnacha Rose Bodegas Aragonesas, 13.5%, @ £7.00. So pale, it is effectively a white wine? Touches of strawberries, aromatic and with sufficient weight to be a real “food Rose”. Very useful wine to have in your fridge – but remember to take it out 20 – 30 minutes before serving, would be a shame to have its flavours masked by too low a temperature! This wine got a “Yum” accolade from my wife.
The next tasting is a Salice Salentino and a Gavi. I give a link below to assist anyone that wants to give these events a go.
https://joinin.coop.co.uk/opportunities/677/signed-up
The Salice Salentino you mention Richard due for this next ”zoom” tasting may be the MWW February 27th ’24 choice from Brian, at that time £7.
I travelled to buy it on more than one occasion over the next couple of months. My local store a few hundred yards from me didn’t stock it, one of the drawbacks of Co-op wine shopping unfortunately. But it was worth it to be able to have this negroamaro rarity.
As with much of this southern Italy stuff, and Sicily too I find these wines unmissable and intriguing in the very least, even after having made a serious error of judgement some time ago with an over-purchase of some poor Sicilian Serasuolo di Vitoria that took years to drink, never having improved by laying it down.
Incidentally I so easily located that MWW review of the Salice Salentino by using the facility Brian provides for us here on this site by clicking on ”view or search all reviews” ! Such a back catalogue as it is and as professionally presented as any page in Decanter. It must one of the best archives around with all that Brian tells us and OUR responses too are there for prosperity. Amazing!!
Hello Richard,
Here is my take on the same recommended event.Not sure why the prices are different.
Co-op Spanish Garnacha 14% £6.75
Two thirds of U.K. wine drinkers only go for Rioja when buying Spanish wine.They are missing out big time on quality and value to be found elsewhere in Spain.
The above lovely red wine is a bargain.Made by a cooperative in the Aragón region,Campo de Borja- just south east of Rioja.The Garnacha bush vines are over 40 years old and planted a metre apart.Everything is at knee height- no trellis- and back breaking hand harvested.These vines know how to survive arid conditions and although the yield is less, the fruit concentration is higher*Not organic,but not far off- no pesticides and the Cierzo wind keeps mildew at bay.
The Co-op grapes grow at 550 metres on stony,limestone soil.
Climate change is real here and the harvest is now a month earlier.
Co-op Irresistible Solo Pale Spanish Rosé 13.5%. £8.50
A lot of members input has been made for this wine from the shape of the bottle,to the stylish label and even the preferred colour.Same producer as above and dry farmed Garnacha grapes.
If I closed my eyes on tasting, then I would describe this as dry white wine,with an extra little bite of red berries.Pleasant,but up against stiff competition- especially on price.
*Age does not affect the quality of the grapes from the vine;,only the yield is affected.It takes two vines to produce one bottle of the red wine.