Summary

‘Please can you do an episode on orange wine?’ pleaded listener David.

‘It’s not just hipster wine! These are some of the finest wines in the world…’

How could we resist?

Orange wine is topical, misunderstood, controversial…

It’s also an intriguing story featuring a wine style lost in the mists of time being painstakingly resurrected by a handful of brave pioneers in the face of stiff opposition.

So we leap headlong into this arena, asking the all-important questions like: what even IS orange wine? Where did it come from? Why is it misunderstood and controversial? How does it relate to natural wine?

And ultimately: is orange wine actually any good?!

In this first instalment in a two-parter on orange wine, we talk to orange wine expert Simon Woolf, author of the brilliant book Amber Revolution: How the World Learned to Love Orange Wine.

We also hear from Mateja Gravner of the iconic Friuli-based orange wine producer Gravner. And we recommend a couple of good value orange wines (again: see below).
 
Look out for the second and concluding part of our orange wine ‘fest’ (out on 26th Jan) when we talk to natural and orange wine guru Doug Wregg of Les Caves de Pyrène, and renowned orange wine producer Saša Radikon.

Plus we get into a fight over a particularly divisive orange wine…

Starring

• Simon Woolf, Amber Revolution: How the World Learned to Love Orange Wine
• Mateja Gravner, Gravner

Links

• Simon Woolf is very kindly offering a 20% discount on his magisterial book Amber Revolution, valid until 1st March 2024. Just use this link (the discount is applied automatically in the cart). Or you can just go Simon’s online shop and use the discount code BLASTP20. The discount applies to both hardback and softback editions.
• You can find our podcast on all major audio players: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon and beyond. The button below will redirect you automatically to this episode on an audio platform on your device.

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Wines

The following are orange wines we tasted in January 2024.

Selected UK stockists are included – often with the best price available. Click on the main wine name for the Wine Searcher link for wider (eg international) availability:

• Santa Tresa Insieme Orange 2022, Sicily (£14.75, Vintage Roots)
• Burja Estate Zelen 2022, Slovenia (£23.28, Les Caves de Pyrène)

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