The Latin expression ante litteram means literally before the letter, in other words, before the written word. I’ve recently had the opportunity to taste what I consider (and others are free to disagree) an “an orange wine ante litteram, id est, an orange wine that was created before the expression or notion of “orange wine” existed: the 1999 Trebbiano d’Abruzzo by Edoardo Valentini. We opened a bottle on Monday at the Orange Wine dinner at Vino Vino in Austin. This wine, made by Valentini himself (as my colleague John Paine pointed out), was fresh and bright, with youthful, powerful tannic structure, nuanced floral notes on the nose, and rich fruit flavor in the mouth. A wine, we agreed, still has many years ahead of it. Truly one of the greatest white wines I’ve ever tasted…

I wasn’t the only one who dug the Valentini and the other wines on Monday night: so did Michael Barnes, social columnist for the Austin American Statesman, who weighed in with this ambrosial post…