Life In A Bottle: Ancona's Kicks Off 2020 with Orange Wine!

Mitch Ancona, the owner of Ancona's Wines & Liquors unveils 2020's first Life In A Bottle Episode. What's in the bottle? Puiatti "Archetipi" Ribolla Gialla 2016, an orange wine! In this episode, Codey Foster, Juan Vega, and Kyle Martinez sip and talk.

Here's what Kyle has to say about this colorful beauty (that is currently on sale for $26.99)

Orange wine is what happens when you make a white wine in the same fashion you'd normally make a red wine.

When grapes are pressed for white wine, the juice is allowed to run off of the 'must', or crushed grapes, and fermentation can begin.

Red wines, however, are made red by keeping the skins in contact with the juice (called maceration).

Most folks who produce orange wine do so by crushing white grapes and allowing the skins to macerate in the juice for a while. This allows for a white wine with a bit more structure; usually providing a fair amount of tannin and bitterness.

With this wine, however, there's a bit of a twist. Instead of skin contact with the pressed grapes, the juice is completely vinified in stainless steel tanks with no oxidation allowed. Later, the wine is infused with individually hand-picked, fresh, and completely intact grapes, drawing color, texture, intense flavor, and tannin from the skins.

The resulting wine (made literally orange by grape skins) is super approachable, clean, and absolutely delicious. The infusion of intact grapes creates a much mellower, fresher infusion of very easy-going tannin, and although I normally avoid the "B" word when discussing wine, just enough pleasant bitterness to create incredible depth.

This'll pair stunningly with nearly any seafood, especially in dishes like paella or cioppino, but its also great with the typically tricky pairings: asparagus, artichokes, Brussels sprouts, etc. (and as evidenced by the video, great with hummus and crudite!)

My notes read: "Whoa. Fresh pressed golden apples and tangerine peels, fresh cut white flowers, and salty, stony mineral; and that's just on the nose. The palate shows more tart, fresh fruit and aromatic flowers, but more savory notes begin to appear. Fresh tender herbs, bitter greens, and saline mineral that follows through the long finish. Bone dry, squeaky clean, and the perfect apertif. Top-shelf, high class orange wine."

Purchase the wine here.

Cheers!