Like Bob Dylan’s music – covering folk music, the blues, rock and gospel – or Salvadore Dali’s paintings – from realism to surrealism – Andrew Jones of Field Recordings has range. He does single varietal, single vineyard wines that are extremely varietally correct, and he has blends that encompass more grapes than the average person can rattle off the top of their head. Today we have the latter for you, an orange wine that is a showcase of blending prowess.

Andrew always has his eyes peeled, keeping an eagle-eyed lookout for vineyards with untapped potential. As a day-to-day nursery fieldman planning and planting vineyards for farmers up and down California, he sometimes gets a small plot of fruit to work with. Since the grapes can range from Pinot Noir, to Riesling, to Xarel-lo, it takes raw experience and an affinity for vines to be able to continuously make great wine from these sites at unpretentious price points.

That’s exactly what Andrew did to produce today’s wine. The 2023 SKINS is a crisp, fresh orange wine that pairs well with duck sausage, roasted peach and ricotta, or just simple hanging out. The fruit is all destemmed and fermented on the skins (yeah, that’s why it’s called skins) from 23 to 46 days depending on the grape, resulting in an aromatically delicate, yet substantial and composed wine.

And here it is. The wine consists of the following plethora of varieties: 34% Chenin Blanc, 18% Pinot Gris, 12% Colombard, 9% Xarel-lo, 8% Verdelho, 6% Vermentino, 3% Trousseau Gris, 3% Semillon, 3% Gewurztraminer, 2% Riesling, and 2% Malvasia Bianca. Give or take. Makes you think that this wine might be at the more surrealistic end of things! Fortunately, it also has all the mass appeal of a simple rock song, as well as an appropriately accessible price:

Field Recordings Central Coast Skins 2023 - $22.99