Fossil & Fawn "Oregon Orange" 2023

Gewürztraminer is a grape that elicits strong emotions based on some bad experiences with soapy treacly versions. Fossil & Fawn approached this wine as a playful experiment: how long can we go letting a ferment sit on its skins? What would it do? Turns out, the answers are (1) more than 300 days, and (2) makes it delicious.

Destemmed Gewürztraminer and Pinot Blanc hang out in egg-shaped fermenters for about ten months. The final wine is dry, textured, and tastes of orange blossoms, rosewater, and bergamot. 

Fossil & Fawn started out as an idea in the summer of 2011, and quickly transformed into a much more complex and unbelievably rewarding venture. The winemakers aren't interested in bold manifestos or style declarations -- their goal is to make wines that they like. They’ve found that the kind of wines they like, and thus the wines they make, are executed with a natural approach that allows the vineyard to do the talking.