Everything You Want to Know About Orange Wine

Orange wine is a bit of a mystery. It is not a wine made with oranges, nor is it a Mimosa cocktail! Orange wine is something entirely different.

What is an Orange Wine? It’s a type of white wine made by leaving the grape skins and seeds in contact with the juice, creating a deep orange-hued finished product.

To make an orange wine, you first take white grapes, mash them up, and then put them in a large vessel (often cement or ceramic). Then, you typically leave the fermenting grapes alone for four days to sometimes over a year with the skins and seeds still attached.

“Make sure you’re sitting down when you taste your first orange wine.”

This is a natural process that uses little to no additives, sometimes not even yeast. Because of all this, they taste very different from regular white wines and have a sour taste and nuttiness from oxidation.

These wines have been described as robust and bold, with honeyed aromas of jackfruit (a fleshy tropical fruit), hazelnut, brazil nut, bruised apple, wood varnish, linseed oil, juniper, sourdough, and dried orange rind.

On the palate, they’re big, dry, and even have tannin like a red wine with a sourness similar to fruit beer. Often Orange wines are so intense that you might want to make sure you’re sitting down when you first taste them.

CHEESE TIP: Pair with sweet sharp aged Cheddar