Skin Contact Crushes
Our latest Skin Contact Crushes are…Italian Rosé and Orange Wines!
It’s almost late summer, whether we’d like to admit it or not. Soon a slight chill will creep into the evenings and we’ll be packing hoodies and wooly sweaters for our social distancing gatherings. This week, we’ve picked a few summery ‘skin contact’ Italian wines - both rosé and orange - for you to enjoy on one of these fleeting warm summer evenings.
‘Skin contact’ wines refer to any wine that spends time on its grape skins after pressing. When a grape is pressed into juice, just a sliver of skin remains with the pulp, but this small amount of grape skin is everything! Grape skins impart tannins (dryness) in wine. Grape skins also impart color to wine and act as the natural colorants in wine. Since grapes vary in color, this means that the wine will vary in hue as well. Wines can range in color from the palest of pink to golden amber and all the way to dark purple-black reds.
Sometimes winemakers will leave wine in contact with grape skins for a few hours, weeks or even months. Provence in Southern France has become internationally known for producing blush colored roses. Provençal winemakers are experts at blending different grape varieties to coax the lightest color out of the grapes. A light colored rosé does not always mean that it’s dry, nor does a darker hued rosé equal sweetness; the color of a wine does not indicate sugar levels in the final wine.
Your quintessential Provençal rosé is very light, delicate, and pale pink. These tend to be the opposite of Italian rosé, which are generally fuller bodied and sometimes a dramatic scarlet and ruby hue, and are rose2 meant to be enjoyed with food. For example, the 2019 Gurrieri Donna Grazia Rosado from Sicily, which is a blend of Nero d'Avola and Frappato, has a slight smokiness after a wave of strawberry flavors. This makes for a fantastic pairing with barbecued meats. Similarly, the 2019 Lamoresca Rosado, which is a blend of Zibibbo and Frappato, is a darker rosé with a light ruby hue. Its tart notes of spiced nectarines and apricots are accentuated when paired to juicy pork and or fried arancini rice balls. From the coastal region of Puglia, the 2019 Pietrogiovani Rosado boasts a vibrant pinkish-amber hue. Made from the Negroamaro grape, this packs serious minerality and notes of baking spices and raspberries, and pairs magically with grilled shrimp marinated in garlic and butter.
Another category of skin contact wines is orange wine, which is white wine made in a red wine style, or white wine with extended grape skin contact. Some orange wines are very tannic, and some are not; some are sweeter, while some are not. Orange wines are excellent with a slight chill and also fabulous with food. Alike to rosé, orange wine isn’t a new winemaking technique but one that has been done for thousands of years. We are very excited about the return of the 2018 Creta Paglia Sciccu. This Calabrian beauty is made by natural winemaker Antonello Canonico from all indigenous Calabrian grape varieties. After being fermented in Slovenian oak with a few days of grape skin contact, this orange wine is transferred to cement vats to age. Notes of thyme, sage and clementines rise from the glass of this brilliant orange-hued wine and make for an excellent pairing with spicy Thai food.
Shop our website and get Italian rosé and orange wines shipped right to your door! If you don’t see what you’re looking for, or would like curbside pickup, please call us at (978) 498-4820 or email wine@thecheeseshopofsalem.com. Cin cin!