This blend of Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer is fermented on skins, making the wine deep orange to amber in colour. This wine is created using red wine methods; co-fermentation with wild yeasts on skins before maturation in French oak.
The result is certainly interesting and very different from a traditional Gewurz or Gris. The nose offers honey, ripe orange, beeswax and blossom notes. There's good weight to the palate, flavours of caramelised sugar, tangelo and rose blossoms. Flavours of honey carry through the long finish. Well worth a look if you're hunting for something different!
From the Winery
Orange or Amber wines are wines made from white grape varieties in a very red wine way. The two varieties were crushed into a stainless steel tank and fermented together by wild yeast (on their skins) for ten days and then pressed off to complete fermentation in an old french oak Puncheon and Hogshead (500L and 300L). After six months it was then bottled without any further intervention from the winemaker; no additions, fining or filtration. As such, a wine of this type will tend to have a slight haze and is likely to throw a crust of harmless crystals and even a sediment.
