Vinos del Viento 'Amber' Moscatel de Alejandría

Michael Cooper went to Spain for love when he was 23 and never left. He met Rosario, moved to her country, and somehow turned a California kid into a guy who hunts down high-altitude, old-vine vineyards. He's been at this long enough to find century-old vines and dry-farmed plots in places where the Cierzo wind whips through the Ebro Valley.

This Amber is his take on orange wine. Moscatel de Alejandría from an organic vineyard, fermented with native yeasts and left on the skins for three months, long enough to turn that beautiful onion-skin colour. It's bottled unfined and unfiltered with practically no sulfur.

It smells like someone dropped a basket of peaches in a field of white flowers and let them sit in the sun. Lychee in syrup. Quince paste. On the palate it's grippy in that satisfying way, like biting into a perfectly ripe peach and feeling it tug back. A really nice orange wine.