Huh? What does this mean? Many of you may have heard about orange wines, natural wines, skinsy whites and ignored them as passing fads. The last few years have shown us these wine styles are here to stay and are just part of the wine drinking repertoire that we are privileged to have access to.

No doubt these styles can be controversial but when made well they are delicious with amazing textural grip and balance – perfect for summer drinking. Skinsy whites are white wines made in the manner of red wines. Normally with white wine making, we ferment just the juice rather than the skins and juice. Fermenting skins and juice together (known as must) is usually reserved for red wines as the skins contain the colour and tannins so need to be present during the fermentation process so we can gently extract them. White grapes don’t have tannins per se but do have phenolics which are kind of like baby tannins. With skinsy whites, we bung skins and juice together in a fermenter and let it all ferment. At the end of fermentation, the skins and wine are left in contact with each other to allow those baby tannins to leach into the wine.

In 2022, the winemaking team here at Rob Dolan decided they wanted to try their hand at a skinsy white. They sneakily ‘borrowed’ a tonne of Pinot Gris grapes and did their thing. The result is their Stuck in the 90s Skinsy Gris. Orange toned in colour with aromas of pomegranate, wild strawberry and old school Orange Tang. The wine is super refreshing with a savoury, grippy finish. Like a pinot gris going through a rebellious phase.

Get yours now at www.robdolanwines.com.au/stuck-in-the-90s

– Meg Brodtmann MW