‘Vins Brisats’ as a tableside cue
Sommelier Ferran Centelles highlighted 'Vins Brisats'—wines that drink fresh like whites but carry red‑wine weight—as a pairing opportunity that can pleasantly surprise diners. The social post suggests servers can frame these wines as red‑style pairings with an unexpected brightness. (x.com, x.com).
A Catalan wine style usually filed under “orange wine” is being pitched as a service cue: offer it where diners expect red-wine weight but not red-wine heaviness. (wsetglobal.com) Ferran Centelles, the former El Bulli sommelier and current Spanish wine writer for Jancis Robinson, highlighted “Vins Brisats” in a recent social post. In Catalan, *vi brisat* refers to a white wine fermented with its skins, a red-wine technique applied to white grapes. (jancisrobinson.com, ca.wikipedia.org) That skin contact changes the wine’s structure. The Wine and Spirit Education Trust said orange wines gain color, texture and tannic grip from time spent fermenting with skins, which is why they can feel broader and more savory than standard whites. (wsetglobal.com) For restaurant service, that gives staff a useful script. A brisat can be introduced as a bottle with the lift and freshness of white wine but enough phenolic bite and body to stand in for some lighter red pairings. (wsetglobal.com, vinum.eu) The idea lands at a moment when skin-contact whites have moved from niche import-shop curiosities into formal wine education and mainstream tasting language. The Wine and Spirit Education Trust published a dedicated explainer on orange wine on January 22, 2026, and now describes the style as one of the modern era’s influential skin-contact categories. (wsetglobal.com) In Catalonia, the term also carries local identity. Jancis Robinson’s regional guide describes Penedès as Catalonia’s most dynamic wine region, and Ferran Centelles has separately pointed to Xarel-lo and vineyard-focused producers as central to the area’s current still-wine story. (jancisrobinson.com, winescholarguild.com) That matters on the floor because “orange wine” can sound like a category pitch, while “brisat” can sound like a house recommendation with a place behind it. Catalan examples reviewed by Jancis Robinson include brisat bottlings made from Xarel-lo, showing the term is already used on real wines, not just in theory. (jancisrobinson.com, jancisrobinson.com) Centelles’ broader profile helps explain why the cue may travel. Barcelona Wine Week lists him as a sommelier at elBullifoundation and former sommelier at El Bulli, and Decanter named him a joint regional chair for Spain at the 2026 Decanter World Wine Awards. (barcelonawineweek.com, decanter.com) The practical takeaway is simple: when a table wants the food-friendliness and shape of a red but not the full weight of one, a brisat gives sommeliers another way in. That pitch works because the wine itself already sits in that in-between space. (wsetglobal.com, ca.wikipedia.org)
