Matt Gregory. The Italian Orange

Matt Gregory The English Winemaker 
Vino Bianco
Grape: Moscato

"Intensely aromatic and grapey with an apricot sweetness. Bitter orange note on the palate, relatively mild tannins. Fresh, dryness enhanced by the tannins, lots of fragrant pleasure with the tannic structure as a complement. Drink 2021–2023"
16 points, Julia Harding MW12.5%

The English Winemaker producer page

The Italian Orange is a rare gem and a unique interpretation of Moscato. The area is well-known for Moscato production, which is generally sweet, low alcohol and fizzy wine. This is quite the opposite, a skin fermented, dry white wine.

Grapes are sorted by hand at Villa Giada and destemmed, but for the 2019 vintage Matt opted for 35% in whole-bunch to add a little more structure than his first moscato from the previous year. Fermented in a single 1000 litre steel tank with natural indigenous yeast and just a couple of hand plunges throughout the fermentation, then left on the skins for a total of 43 days. The grapes were pressed back to a steel tank to rest on lees for nearly a year. Bottled unfined, unfiltered with just a small (20 ppm) addition of sulphur.

The label’s artwork is by Vanessa Stone.