This is based on a sample provided by the winery or organization acting on their behalf.

2012 Beauregard Vineyards Pinot Gris Orange Wine Regan Vineyards

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About Beauregard Vineyards

For five generations, my family has been working the land in Bonny Doon, CA growing premium wine grapes. As winemakers it is our mission to produce wines that display the flavor of our home land, and make wines that are true to their variety. My wines are simplistic in the sense that they reflect what they truly are. This is accomplished through old world winemaking techniques.

We invite you to experience the true terroir of Bonny Doon, and enjoy the typicity and purity of our wines.

– Ryan Beauregard, Winemaker

Much more information on the winery, their vineyards, and most importantly, their wines is available here.

About Orange Wine

Simply stated, an Orange Wine is a wine made with “white grapes” that are treated like they were red. This includes extended maceration time which does not happen in the production of a typical white wine. This time the juice spends in contact with the grape skins allows the wine to gain color, flavor, and tannins from the skins.

Orange Wine is not a new fad; they have been around for thousands of years and had a big revival in northeastern Italy and Slovenia in the 1950s and 60s.

Several months ago Wine Enthusiast magazine had a feature on Orange Wines entitled “Orange Wines Will Never be Mainstream” and subtitled “But a case for why they’re more than a dying trend.” The full article is available by clicking here.

Other articles about orange wines are available in these newspapers and magazines:

Bon Appetit, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, and Imbibe Magazine.

Here is a side by side comparison of the winery’s regular Pinot Gris and their Orange Wine. These two wines are from the same grape, vineyard, and vintage.

2012 Beauregard Vineyards Pinot Gris Orange Wine Regan Vineyards – SRP $32.00

This wine had 21 days of skin contact during fermentation and was aged in neutral American oak. The final alcohol is 13.7%. There were 240 cases of the wine produced.

I sampled the wine over a few hours trying it at varying temperatures. In my opinion, the wine was best at a cool room temperature, perhaps 65 to 68 degrees. At colder temperatures the nose was fairly closed and the acidity was suppressing the palate and clipping the finish. If the wine was too warm it lost its structure and balance. This wine should be treated like a lighter body red wine and not a white wine.

This wine would work with most of the foods served with fuller bodied whites and lighter bodied red wines. The winery suggests Havarti cheese and during the chat Thanksgiving dinner was brought up, which I agree with wholeheartedly.

My Tasting Note

The wine is a bright, neon orange color. The exotic nose has white peach, dark toast, spice, roasted leafy herbs, minerals, orange zest, raspberry, pencil shavings, and butterscotch. This medium body, dry wine is rich and velvety on the palate, with light tannins and very good acidity. The finish has very nice length and ends with a unique dried orange skin element as well as minerals. (90 pts)

Connect with me

You can follow me on Twitter for more wine info, potential food pairings, and an occasional recipe or two. Be warned, I’m also a sports fan and there are occasional Pittsburgh Penguins, Steelers, and Pirates tweets. I attended the University of South Carolina, so during football season, there will also be some Gamecock posts.

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Cheers!

* Shameless Self Promotion *

Here is a link to a YouTube video of me getting “coal” from Santa for being named the “Nicest Person in Social Media” in 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOvQTeGR3-c

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Notes – I use the “official” Cellar Tracker name for the wines. I use Cellar Tracker to help manage and organize my cellar. I highly recommend checking it out at www.cellartracker.com. Loading you existing cellar is a lot less intimidating than it would first appear. There is a good chance 99% of your wine is already in the system, so you generally only need to enter part of the wine’s name and the system will find it for you.

Prices noted are the prices I paid at the time of purchase. I don’t shop around to find the best prices, but my local store is usually VERY competitive. I generally get case discounts, and since I work there part time, I get a 5% discount. Wines purchased direct from a winery do not include any shipping charges. None of the prices include the sales tax.

All wines that were sent to me free of charge to sample will be noted and I will show suggested prices when available.