£7.49 on offer, Waitrose
My first Wine of the Week for 2024 is for anyone who has yet to try an orange wine, anyone who has yet to find one they like, anyone who is a committed orange-wine drinker already or anyone who is simply tempted by a bargain. That should round up quite a few people.
If you know what orange wine is, skip this and the next paragraph, butI learned when I chose Luis Felipe Edwards’ Macerao Naranjo instead of a white wine for a book launch last year that a lot of wine drinkers aren't familiar with orange wine. Few of the guests had had one before, or knew what the term meant, but they loved the wine and considerably more of the Macerao was drunk than the Italian red I had chosen for the book party.
Briefly, orange wine is made from white grapes, but fermented with their skins and pips like red wine, whereas white wine is made from fermenting the clear juice after pressing the grapes. The result is colour (orange, amber, yellow, sometimes slightly cloudy) and different flavours and textures.
This wine, made from traditionally dry-farmed 60-year-old Moscatel de Alexandria vines, is fermented with wild yeasts and stays with its skins and pips for three months.
It’s an authentic but accessible introduction to the style, so all I ask is that you approach it with an open mind. That way I hope you’ll find an appealing, aromatic, dry wine with an orange tinge, a perfume of apricot, rose, orange peel and ginger and an interesting, fleshy palate with a lightly chewy texture and clean finish.
This is best served only lightly chilled and you can drink Macerao Naranjo on its own, but the particular flavours and textures of orange wines make them good with food. Try pairing this with spiced or smoked seafood and fish, spiced vegetable dishes, bean dishes such as pasta e fagioli, stuffed peppers or cabbage leaves, a meze spread, multi-ingredient salads or roast chicken. 12.5%.Â
Luis Felipe Edwards Macerao Naranjo 2021, Valle del Itata, Chile
£7.49 on offer until 30.1.24, then back to £8.99, Waitrose