Good evening,
I am quite new to the topic of orange wines and plan to try some of the wines of Josko Gravner, an orange wine producer in Friuli. Thus I would like for some advice how to enjoy such a wine best.
What is the ideal drinking temperature for such a wine (especially the more full-bodied versions like Gravner’s wines)? Is it recommendable to treat the wine basically as a light red wine like e.g. a Valpolicella Rosso or red Burgundy?
Does anybody maybe have some ideas which food matches best with orange wines? It would be great to hear about some experiences.
Thanks a lot in advance!!
When in doubt serve a bit cooler than cellar temp. That way you can experience it at various temperatures. In Friuli they served Gravner’s wines cellar temp but in a bag of ice.
I have no experience with Gravner wines, but quite a bit with various Georgian ones. I prefer to serve them straight out of the cellar - but my “cellar” is set to 12C so that might be totally consistent with what Nathan wrote. They will warm naturally at the table of course, so you can judge for yourself if you prefer them a bit warmer (Edit: ah, I just noticed Nathan made that point too!)
I find them very flexible with food, so they are good with meze-style meals. I wouldn’t match the very astringent ones with delicate foods like white fish, but apart from that anything is certainly worth trying. Can’t think of any stand-out matches, but for me that is a rare experience with any wine.
Hi, I think that there is no coincidence that orange wine is so often seen in Scandinavia, in particular Denmark. They really match with traditional Scandinavian cuisine. Gravners’ amphora wines together with crayfish Swedish style (cooked with dill etc) is a match made in heaven.
If you haven’t already bought Carla Capalbo’s book Tasting Georgia, wonderfully reviewed by Tam in New Old World at the start of the year, it might give you some ideas. Carla writes extensively about qvevri-style Georgian wines and the food that is habitually drunk with them, including recipes. You may not want to go down that route but it does give you ideas of what sort of flavours go well with the ‘orange’ wines of Georgia as well as orange wines more generally.
Yes, I have normally drunk them with Georgian food - in Georgia, and using Carla’s recipes. Can highly recommend Tasting Georgia.
Thanks a lot for all the great advice. That really helps a lot for what I was wondering about
It might sound strange, but I have found that many orange wines are good partners for spicy Thai or Indian dishes. Robust enough to stand up to some intense flavours in a way that most white wines fail to do, but without the overt tannins, alcohol and oak that can prevent red wines from being good matches.
Interesting to note there’s a piece on Georgian wines on the BBC website today.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47363702