Winebits 442: Orange wine, Big Beer, Franken-wine

• Orange is the new rose: How else do we know that rose has become acceptable? The wine geeks and hipsters are looking for something else to drink because rose is too bourgeois: “Rosé addicts probably won’t be abandoning the pink stuff, but funky, fruity and unique orange wines add yet another colorful hue to summertime happy hours. Orange you glad you have something new to drink?” Sigh. And, as if you couldn’t guess, the cheapest wine listed in the story is $15, and one costs $90.

• Bring on the Bud: There is much hand-wringing in the wine business over the popularity of craft beer, and it’s easy to see why. Craft beer producers are clever in a way wine types can’t even begin to imagine or would do if they could imagine it. Consider this offer from a Buffalo, N.Y., craft brewer – bring it an unopened Budweiser, and get a discount on its beer, complete with this quote: “We don’t care where the Anheuser Busch product came from or how you acquired it. You don’t even have to pretend someone left it in your fridge after a party. We just want it off our streets.”

• Faking great wine: In one respect, this is nothing new, as any Northern Exposure fan will tell you. But this approach – making wine in the laboratory without grapes – does seem to be taking wine where it has never gone before. Or should be taken. And because this is a tech company that’s making a wine-like product, nothing is cheap. How does $50 a bottle sound? Thought I do wonder what the artificial intelligence wine review will say.