Organic Orange Wines

Southbrook Organic Vineyards continues to encourage a diverse ecosystem and wildlife presence through our winemaking and viticulture. In 2008 we became Canada’s first Certified Organic and Biodynamic winery. Our pursuit of excellence and innovation made way for our first vintage of orange wine in 2014, when we released our first Estate Vidal ‘Orange’ wine.

What is “Orange” wine?
Orange wine, known in Ontario as Skin Fermented White, is unique not only for its colour and taste, but for the process in which it is made. Just as in red winemaking, white grapes see extended maceration and skin contact during fermentation. This gives the wine its orange colour and greater structure.

Although we have produced our orange wine since 2014, the category was not officially recognized by the VQA until 2017. Southbrook, was instrumental in spearheading the proposal set forth to the VQA board for approval. This ultimately lead to the new category of ‘Skin Fermented White’.

Our Skin Fermented Vidal is exemplary of the ‘nothing added, nothing taken away’ philosophy at the root of Natural Winemaking. When making white wine, stems and grape skins are typically discarded before fermentation. When making our Skin Fermented Vidal, we utilize the entire grape. This process benefits the flavour and texture of the final product, making for a wine that is expressive of Vidal’s hidden potential. The wine undergoes wild fermentation with no additives and remains unfiltered. What is left in the bottle is a wine Southbrook proudly presents in its most natural form.

Our process:
Small lots of Vidal are hand harvested from our Estate in the Four Mile Creek sub-appellation of Niagara on the Lake. 800 kg were cluster sorted and foot-trodden, then fermented stems-and-all using only wild yeasts and a natural malolactic conversion over a 30 day period. The matrix of stems and gentle acting yeast convert natural grape sugars while infusing a novel array of flavours into this wine. After gentle pressing the wine was naturally chilled outdoors, settled and bottled cloudy without additives of any kind. In addition, the wine does not contain sulphites as it already has the appropriate antioxidants from skins, and stems.

One common misconception people have when trying orange wines is that they all taste the same, which is simply not true. As with most wines, much of the character is determined by the grape varietal. In our Estate Orange wine, Vidal expresses far beyond its typical bright, floral and fruity character, shattering expectation. The 2021 vintage shows a distinct aroma of citrus and yellow plums that gives way to white flowers and steeped black tea. On the palate, vibrant acidity balances the wine as it shows ripe green fruit and complex herbal and earthy flavours.

Orange wines flavour profile are much more dependant on what foods you pair them with. Nice pairings include, but are not limited to exotic spices and flavours of the Mediterranean, Spanish & Moroccan spices, or traditional pasta dishes, where we may have a chance to experience the wine’s bready, biscuit notes at their best.

Although, It wasn’t until recently that orange wines came to be popular, they have a rich and dynamic history that extends all the way back to the Egyptians 3150BC. It is an exciting change from traditionally having to choose from whites or reds.