Domaine Jones Orange Wine Vineyard Collection – 2020

This very unusual wine was made from a very unusual grape – the white Macabeu grape. The vines are 60 years old and possibly this is the last vineyard planted to this varietal in the area of Tuchan, where Katie Jones is based. Katie cultivates these vines organically and they produce tiny yields of grapes which are concentrated and powerful, yet have intesne acidity.

Orange wine is made by leaving white grapes to rest for a few days after picking. This gives the juice time to pick up additional colour and flavours from the skins. 

This wine is only very slightly orange in colour. It has creamy custard, apple, pear crumble and hawthorn blossom fruit character with a rich, waxy note. A delightful soft texture and phenolic firm richness. 

Serve at room temperature or very slightly chilled.  Delicious with oven baked camembert and baguette!

Here are Katie’s winemaking notes:-

We made this wine in a small 1100 litre tank in my boutique winery in Tuchan.  We added 40 cagettes of 15 kg of whole bunch macabeu and 10 cases of destalked macabeu then closed the lid and waited for fermentation to start.  We left the vat for 6 days before pressing the fizzy grapes, just enough time for carbonic maceration to start inside the grapes and gentle colour and structure to be extracted.  We then chose to age the wine in two 225 litre French barrels of 3 years wine.  A minimal amount of SO2 was used throughout the process and no temperature control to enhance the flavours and slight oxidation.  Ferment reached 24°C.