Our wines have been gradually shifting towards less skin contact and more nuance – we use shorter and shorter maceration times and a much smaller proportion of skin-contact wine in the final blends than before. But I still like to enjoy a well-made skin-contact wine from time to time (especially when they come from my beloved Collio / Brda area).
In short, skin contact wines still have their place in my heart and cellar, and creating an amber brother to our dear Běl & Nach liters was kind of a no-brainer. All these salt-of-the-earth fellas share not only the plump one-liter bottles that we've really fallen in love with, and the linocut label by my dear wife Mirka, but also the same “everyday easy drinking” vibe. This means no hardcore tannins or long macerations, but rather a fine, normal skin-contact wine with great energy, distinguished aromatics, and only a hint of the “orangey” character. (Full disclosure: I'm not a huge fan of the term orange wine or its ubiquity.) Okr is vivid, fun, and just enough talkative for it to be the best of companions.
We chose to name it Okr (ochre in Czech) not only because it follows the concise, colour-themed concept of its siblings Běl and Nach, but also because ochre is a natural pigment with a long history of use by humans – pieces of the material engraved with abstract designs have been found in South Africa and dated to around 75,000 years ago. And ochre literally is earth, precisely a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand, with colours ranging from yellow to orange or amber. Voilá the perfect symbol for where the wine comes from, and which hues & glints you can expect in your glass...
Wanna drink this? These are the guys to ask where to get my wine in your country, or get it as part of our tasting packs.
