Brett happens

The tasting ended with a gorgeous orange wine, the first to be sold at the SAQ.

Sicilia IGT 2011, Ramì, Azienda Agricola COS ($27.25, 12024237)
Biodynamically farmed Inzolia (50%) and Grecanico (50%) from vines averaging ten years old and growing in calcareous soil. Yield: 50 quintals per hectare. The grapes are manually harvested in 12 kg cases, destemmed, soft-crushed and macerated on the skins and pips for ten days. Temperature-controlled fermentation (with indigenous yeasts) and maturation take place in concrete tanks. The wine is filtered before bottling with a 2-micron filter. No sulphur is used during the wine-making but a small squirt of sulphur dioxide is added at bottling. 12% ABV.
Another beautiful, wafting nose: straw, spice, beeswax, hints of dried apricot and sandpaper. The texture is smooth and full, while the sweet and savoury fruit has overtones of dried orange peel, nuts (more almond or pine than hazel) and faint, faint gingersnap. Bright acidity and ghostly tannins add firmness and tension. Long, balanced and remarkably fresh. A haunting beauty. (Buy again? Most definitely.)

As was noted at the tasting, orange wines’ savour, weight and structure tend to make them vins gastronomiques – wines that show best with food or even demand food. Yet while the Ramì proved to be an excellent pairing for the porchetta di testa, it was equally delicious on its own. Its freshness, lightness and barely noticeable tannins mean it’s a far from radical example of the style – a beginner’s orange wine, as it were – but on its own terms it is wholly satisfying, a testament to the winemaker’s craft.