What is Orange Wine?
What's old is new and trendy again.
by Erin Henderson
I teach a lot of wine courses. And no matter the subject – wines of France, wine and cheese pairings, learn to taste – I can guarantee, within 99.9% accuracy, someone in the session will ask about orange wine.
In short: it's a skin-contact wine made from white grapes, such as Chardonnay, Vidal, or Riesling.
Typically when making white wines the greenish, sometimes greyish, skins are removed as they're not needed for the final product; the winemaker only needs and wants the clear juice from the pulp inside the grape.
But, when the white grape skins are left in the juice as it ferments into wine – and this could be anywhere from a day or two to a number of months, depending onthe winemaker's vision – the reaction causes the clear juice to take on shades of orange – anything from creamsicle pale to deeply amber.
This process might sound familiar to red wine enthusiasts. Red wines are made by leaving the dark grape skins in the clear juice as it ferments into wine to give it some sort of shade of pale ruby to inky purple.
And just like with red grapes, white grape skins also contribute more than colour to an orange wine. They contain tannins, polyphenols, and various compounds that contribute to the wine's texture, flavour, and aroma.
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Part of the attraction to orange wines, I believe, is its romantic history. Most experts believe orange wine began about 8,000 years ago in what is now the eastern European country of Georgia, where yeast-blanketed wines quietly aged underground in clay amphora – and in many cases, that practice is still observed today.
While many orange wines are natural – made with biodynamic and organic practices, shepherded from vineyard to barrel to bottle with minimal intervention – orange wine is not synonymous with natural. It's enirely possible to make an orange wine using conventional winemaking techniques while simply observing the skin-contact method.
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Orange wines are prized for their funky flavours, though not everyone is accustomed to it. It's tough to pin down an exact flavour profile, the same way not all red or white wines taste the same, but generally speaking, orange wines can have a range of flavours reminiscent of apple cider, tart stone fruit, and yeasty notes. Textures can range from very astringent and drying to quite smooth and delicate.
As for food pairings, orange wine seems to be proving a very flexible dinner date. It can match well with spices, nuts, and citrus, as well as strong and earthy flavours like lamb, eggplant, and lentils. Try it with highly flavourful food such as Morrocan lamb tagine, spicy Madras chicken curry, and grilled Portugese octopus. But you don't have to go to the ends of the earth to find a proper pairing worthy of orange wines. Prosaic roast chicken, grilled salmon, and lentil soup all work well with orange wine, as well.