Bruno Besa | Amber to golden. Intense, earthy nose, with apricot compote, orange marmalade, dried herbs, and nuts. Astringent palate, with little fruit. | 84

Andrew Jefford | Pale orange. Clean and relatively quiet, aromatically speaking: softly yeasty fruits. Vivid, lively, chewy on the palate, with fresh and tasty tannins and cascading, lively but neutral fruit. A well-made and satisfying orange wine, and doubtless the variety has worked well for that purpose, but I can’t find much Ribolla character there. As it also tends to be in abeyance in the very reductive versions, perhaps the solution to draw it out at its best is either delicately controlled oxidation styles or restrained orange styles. The future will tell us! | 89

Michael Palij | Back when I was a wee slip of a boy my neighbor said to me, “Never eat yellow snow.” I kind of feel the same way about orange wine. Now, as orange wines go, this is far more cordial than many, with more delineated fruit and the VA is kept in check. On the palate, however, the wine just doesn’t have any fruit—the tannins (massive for a red, let alone a white) dominate the wine and render it undrinkable. I’m sure that this is massively expensive but for me it’s nothing more than a curiosity. Glad it’s been made but my curmudgeonly views have not changed. | 82