Orange wine
/ˈɔːrɪndʒ waɪn/
style, vinification, skin-contact, white-wine, amber, natural-wine, maceration, phenolics, qvevri, amphora, history, sensory, food-pairing, marketing, classification•Last updated January 1, 2026
A style of white wine made by fermenting white (light‑skinned) grapes with prolonged skin contact, often including seeds and sometimes stems, similar to red‑wine production. This process extracts color, tannin, and phenolic compounds, yielding wines that range from deep gold to amber or orange in hue, with a textured, sometimes tannic mouthfeel and often savory, tea‑like or oxidative notes.
Examples
- A Ribolla Gialla from Friuli‑Venezia Giulia fermented on its skins for 30 days in large casks, showing a deep orange color, firm tannins, and flavors of dried apricot, black tea, and nuts—listed on a restaurant menu under the 'Orange / Skin‑Contact' section.
- A Georgian Rkatsiteli fermented and aged with skins, seeds, and stems in buried qvevri for several months, producing an amber‑orange, strongly tannic wine with notes of honey, dried fruit, and walnuts, marketed internationally as an orange (or amber) wine.
- A Slovenian Malvazija (Malvasia) left on its skins for two weeks and bottled with minimal sulfur and slight haze, described by the importer as a 'natural orange wine' to signal its extended skin contact and distinctive structure.