In recent years, more and more wineries have begun to release
orange wines.
The first examples I tasted struck me as a fad, and one that I
hoped would soon die. The wines often had a tannic bitterness on the finish and
favours that reminded me of Cuban cigars. There was a time when I enjoyed the
occasional cigar. But I never wanted to drink one.
40 Knots Winery, a producer at Comox on Vancouver Island, is
making me rethink my views on orange wine. The winery’s current releases
include three vintages. All are delicious and none taste like cigars.
Orange wines are white wines that have been fermented and aged
briefly on the skins. The wines pick up the orange hue primarily from pigments
in the skins. Depending on the varietal and the winemaking technique, some of
the colour and tobacco flavours may also come from slight oxidation.
It is a matter of your palate whether you like notes of
oxidation. I prefer a wine to be fresh and clean, even an orange wine.
Layne Craig, who calls himself the owner, janitor, farmer and
grape fermenter at 40 Knots, seems to have mastered the technique of making
orange wines that are fresh.
These wines are made with Schönburger grapes; one vintage also
has some Pinot Gris in the blend. Both of these varieties have some colour in
the skins of mature grapes.
Schönburger is a lightly pink-skinned variety developed in
Germany in 1939. According to Wine Grapes, the book by Jancis Robinson
and colleagues, it is a cross of Pinot Noir and Pirovano I. The latter is a
cross of Muscat of Hamburg and Chasselas Rosé.
Schönburger, which was only authorized in 1980, is named for
the town of Schönburg in Germany’s Mittelrhein wine region. It seems it is more
widely planted in England than Germany because it ripens early. That suggests
it is well suited to Vancouver Island.
Schönberger is one of the synonyms for the grape. It is the spelling that 40 Knots uses of its
labels. I prefer the spelling similar to the town, as if it matters.
To make the orange wines, Layne places the grapes, without
crushing, in an Italian-made terracotta amphora. They are fermented with wild
yeast, with gentle punchdowns and with minimal additions of sulphur. The wine
remains in contact with the skins for three months. The wine is bottled without
either fining or filtering.
The winemaking technique is risky compared with traditional winemaking
but, as the cliché has it, “no risk, no reward”.
The rest of the 40 Knots portfolio is relatively conventional.
The 40 Knots winery was opened in 2011 by Bill Montgomery, a
former towboat company owner who planted a sizeable vineyard near Comox in 2007
and 2008. The 18 acres include Auxerrois,
Siegerrebe, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, and Gamay Noir. He put the winery on the market a year after
opening when he discovered that it involved an overwhelming amount of work.
The winery was purchased by Layne and his wife, Brenda
Hetman-Craig, a business couple from Fort St. John who wanted to buy and
operate a family business. They have had the energy to do it.
With consulting help from Okanagan winemakers Matt Dumayne and
Michael Bartier, Layne mastered
viticulture and winemaking, Some of the winemaking techniques, like fermenting
in terracotta amphorae with wild yeast, are comparatively cutting edge.
Here are notes on the wines.
No comments:
Post a Comment