What in the world is Orange Wine !?!

Let’s start real quick here “Orange” is not a type of grape or winemaking technique. It’s a color! And it’s just one color in the enormous style, and color spectrum, of skin-contact wines.

Like red and white and rosé before it, people have begun to use the color orange to define and judge wines. Any white-wine grape can be used to make orange wine. It’s true!

Hey! If colors are what open your world up to try wines; more power to you. Skin contact on wines has been around for thousands of years.

If you go to the Wine Folly website…you’ll get this:

The process of making orange wine is very old, but the reinvigoration of this ancient process has only resurfaced in the last 20 odd years. Many modern-day orange winemakers look as far back as 5000 years in Caucasus (modern-day Georgia,–not the state) where wines were fermented in large subterranean vessels called Qvevri (“Kev-ree”) that were originally closed with stones and sealed with beeswax.

Which I am sure will cause debate and confusion.

So just remember this…

1.       It’s not made from Oranges

2.       Orange wines are the product of vinifying white grapes the way red wine is normally made.

3.       Most Orange wines taste like a bolder, savorier version of wines from the same white grape it was made from.

4.       It’s not like Blue Wine which is Blue wine is made from red and white grapes, and gains its strange color from that.

5.       Orange Wine goes with a lot of food and they handle this wide range of flavors well. Especially foods that do not usually go with reds.

6.       All skin contact wines are not orange, but all orange wines are made from skin contact.

By all means, try an Orange Wine. It’s now the trendy thing to ask for…