What Is Orange Wine?

While the lovely amber hue may suggest otherwise, orange wine is not made from oranges, nor is it artificially colored, nor is it a type of wine cocktail. Orange wine is all natural! It’s made by leaving the skins on white grapes during fermentation.

While orange wine may be new to you, it’s actually been kicking around for centuries. Wine academics suspect orange wine was first enjoyed in Georgia, Europe, way back in 6000 B.C. (which is also thought to be the birthplace of wine as we know it). 

Over thousands of years, orange wine fell into obscurity. But a recent resurgence started around 20 years ago, and wine lovers everywhere rediscovered this unusual style of wine.

While Georgian, Slovenian, and Italian orange wines are the most well known, new world wine regions, such as Australia, South Africa, and New York in the United States are producing some really exciting orange wines.

We can thank British wine importer David A. Harvey for the name orange wine. The technical term for this wine style is skin-contact wine, due to how these gloriously golden wines are made.