Wine
Orange Wine: A Mysterious, Charming, Food-Friendly Wine You Didn’t Know You Needed
Orange wine feels utterly modern. Frequently found at natural wine bars and restaurants specializing in all things progressive and chic, it would be easy to think that orange wine was invented by Oakland hipsters.
While the term “orange wine” is new (a canny British wine merchant named David Harvey coined the term in 2004), the style itself is ancient. The best orange wines connect ancient traditions with modern winemaking, resulting in a deliciously sophisticated and elegant quaff—with a hint of edginess.
What Is Orange Wine?
Its decidedly punk rock paradigm notwithstanding, orange wine was born in the country of Georgia about 8,000 years ago. Traditionally, the process involves fermenting crushed white grapes in clay vessels, then leaving them on the skins in vessels underground.
Orange wine, at its essence, is a white wine made the way red wine is typically made—the color, tannic structure, and deep aromas and flavors come from the longer amount of time the wine spends in contact with skins. (Rosé wine, by comparison is the opposite: essentially a red wine made the way white wine is typically made—the light color, light structure and brighter and fruitier aromas and flavors come from the shorter amount of time the wine spends in contact with skins).
In the glass, orange wine—also known as skin-contact or amber wine—marries the elegance of white wines with the flavor and structure of red wines. It is, for many, a crossover category, and a rare wine that appeals to both white and red wine lovers—and both traditionalists and boundary-pushers.
Orange Wine, Past & Present
While winemakers in Georgia have been making skin-fermented wines for thousands of years, the practice didn’t really catch on in the rest of the world until the late 1990s, outside of small pockets in northeastern Italy and Slovenia.
The first orange wine to trend outside of a certain circle of oenophiles emerged thanks to Josko Gravner in the late 1990s. Gravner deployed indigenous Italian grapes like Sauvignon Vert, Ribolla Gialla and Pinot Grigio to grand effect, and over the following decades, the practice spread across Europe and North America.
Today, winemakers create orange wines in a variety of ways and they use a range of fermentation and aging vessels. All of these processes involve fermented white grapes on skins for anywhere from one week to a year, resulting in amber-hued wines with more tannins and structure than whites typically possess. The flavors of orange wine vary depending on the grapes and method used and can range from a light quaffable red, to a deeply funky ale.
When you first taste an orange wine, you’re met with a harmonious symphony of flavors, from honeyed, stewed fruits to the vibrant freshness of ripe citrus. Think Old World wine filtered through the Gen Z Zeitgeist. Orange wine is at its best when served slightly chilled. Ideally, you should remove the wine from the refrigerator 20 minutes before you plan to serve it, which will allow the complex flavors to unwind and show themselves.
If you’ve suddenly seen orange wine pop up in unexpected places, you’re not alone. The market for orange wine is growing. Currently valued at around $40 million, it’s expected to sustain a CAGR of 5.29% to reach $67 million by 2032, according to forecast from market researcher Fact.MR. Ready to see what the fuss is about? Read on.
Pairing and Bottle Recommendations
Orange wine is arguably the most food friendly wine of all, with bold and complex flavors, capable of playing well with everything from fresh to aged cheeses, spicy Korean BBQ, rich Italian pastas, spicy Thai take-out, or smoked fish. In addition to pairing with a range of flavors, it will pair well with a range of settings, from friendly neighborhood block parties to formal dinner parties. Ready to try this versatile wine? Here are a few of our favorite summer-ready bottles and pairings:
Orange Wine + Calamari
Enhance the flavor of flash-fried calamari with hand-picked skin-contact Trebbiano sourced from Texas High Plains. You’ll find notes of honeydew, lemon, nectarine, and candied peaches which pair perfectly with a variety of fried and fresh fish dishes, and young cheeses.
Orange Wine + Korean BBQ
A little spice will play well with the flavors in this Pinot Gris. This wine spent 23 days on skins, followed by 15 months of sur lie aging. This wine boasts savory flavors which pair wonderfully with the richness of Korean BBQ and the lush texture and ginger tones work incredibly well with spicy noodles.
Orange Wine + Vegetarian Feast
Authentique Wine Cellars Leisure Skin Contact Pinot Gris, 2021
If you’re ready to dip your toe into the orange wine category, you can’t go wrong with this wine. The organic and biodynamically farmed Pinot Gris spends just enough time on the skin to get the lightest copper-rose impression, before settling into concrete, amphorae and neutral French oak for aging. On the palate is citrus and Asian pear, with just enough structure to stand up to a grilled vegetarian feast—with or without heaving boards of fresh and aged cheeses.
Our Lead Sommelier, Elyse Lovenworth spoke about orange wines with Better Home & Gardens: Read More
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