Where Orange is the New White

by Devin Myers

Orange wine is not new. It has been around for more than 9,000 years. In olden times, though, it was just called . . . wine. Crafted from white fruit like Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, or Chenin Blanc, the skins and even some of the stems are left in during the fermentation process. This adds healthy wild bacteria and yeasts which contribute to range, depth, and complexity of flavors, and the individual nature of the skins imparts beautiful hues.

Though orange wine may have fallen out of fashion in the West when some wine makers started monocropping or adding interventions like sulfites, sugars, or egg whites, it never fell out of favor in its places of origin, places like Georgia, Slovenia, and Italy. Recently, it has enjoyed a resurgence in America, largely due to the thirst for a greater diversity and newness of wine flavors.

Fog Bottle Shop focuses on what we drink and where it comes from. In the same way that people like to buy produce from farms, farmers markets, and farm stands, this shop is about supporting the smallest of the small, focusing on those winemakers who grow all their own fruit organically, biodynamically, with no additives, so it is just about the grapes.

Winemakers who are also farmers, and who grow all their own grapes, make up less than 1% of the industry. The ethos of the shop is first and foremost to support and hold up those people who are doing that—friends, family, friends of friends, and locals in the area. The secondary focus follows wines from a particular thread of coastally oriented vineyards across the world: Australia, New Zealand, the coast of California, the coast of Mexico and Baja, and the European coastal growers in Catalunya, Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily.

It is a highly curated shop, and everything here is fantastic. Take the Caesura Sparkling Viognier, for example—a local sparkling wine fermented with fruit skin contact, made by Caleb Leisure, who is considered by many to be one of the best American wine makers specializing in natural wines. He farms his fruit in Yorkville and makes his wine in Cloverdale, using giant clay vessels which he imported from the country of Georgia. Known as queveries, these are built traditionally by a few families of tenth-generation potters from Georgia, where orange wine was first made.

Another star of the wine shop is Chill Pill, a Chenin Blanc from Subject to Change Wine Company out of the Deanda Vineyard in Redwood Valley. This wine is a good expression of classic orange wine, with that stunning color, a taste which is a blend of very tropical, savory, and herbal flavors, and a very fun label.

Fog Bottle Shop has these and many other interesting and delicious wines from around the world. Located in the heart of Mendocino Village, their selections offer tastes of both local and faraway sun drenched vineyards. Stop by for your own taste of orange wine—or, as we call it, just wine.

Fog Bottle Shop at Fog Eater Café
45104 Main Street, Mendocino
(707) 397-1806 | FogEaterCafe.com