The Corkscrew | If it’s not red, white or rosé, what is it?

It’s not quite a white wine, nor is it a rosé and it’s definitely not a red wine.

Inside all grapes, whatever their skin colour, the pulp and juice is white. Rosé wines are made from red-wine grapes and their pink hue is the result of the juice’s brief contact with the skins of the grapes from which they are pressed. Red grapes become red wine due to prolonged maceration of the liquid with the grape skin.

The longer a winemaker leaves the juice in contact with the skin, the deeper the colour of the wine. It’s a delicate balance – too long, and the wine could have more bitter tannins than intended. Another factor that can affect colour is the thickness of the grape skin – pinot noir, for example, which is mainly found in cool to moderate climates, is at the thin-skinned end of the scale, with shiraz/syrah on the thick-skinned side because the grape does best in warmer to hot climates.

Orange wines are made from white-wine grapes using the same methodology as red-wine production. That is, pressing the grapes and letting them sit with the skins for up to two weeks while fermenting. Why? To give them tannins, more colour – that eye-catching orange hue – and an interesting, slightly funky nose with a mildly bitter apple ciderish zip. This technique is used to allow the wine to age more like a red. Georgia, Slovenia and Lebanon have been the traditional homes of orange wines.

The best examples available in Hong Kong are from the Movia Winery, in the Brda region in Slovenia, and have been made by the Kristancic family since 1820. My favourite drop is their rebula (ribolla in Italian); the name comes from the word ribollire, which means to reboil, a process the wine goes through in the spring, when the weather warms up and fermentation begins again.