Orange Wine: Older Than You Think, Better Than You'd Expect
Andi Healey
Web Manager
You may have seen it on a wine list and assumed it was a mistake. White wine that looks amber, has tannins, and smells faintly of beeswax and dried apricot.
It is not a mistake.
Here’s what orange wine actually is, and why it deserves a place on your table.
Key Takeaways
- Orange wine is white wine made with extended skin contact: the same basic process used to make red wine.
- The colour and tannins come from the grape skins, not from added colouring or unusual grapes.
- It has been made for thousands of years, particularly in Georgia, Slovenia, and northern Itaaly; it is not a modern trend.
- Flavour profiles are genuinely different from conventional white wine: expect dried fruit, nuts, tea, oxidative notes, and structure.
- Orange wine suits food that would overwhelm a standard white: rich, spiced, fermented, or umami-driven dishes.
- A larger-bowled white wine glass (specifically one designed for full-bodied whites) handles orange wine better than a standard white wine glass.
- Serving temperature matters: orange wine is best around 12 - 14°C, slightly warmer than most whites.
In This Article
What Is Orange Wine?
Orange wine is white wine made like red wine.
That is the short version. It's accurate, and it's useful.
The process that makes red wine red (leaving the grape juice in contact with the skins during fermentation) is also what makes orange wine orange. The skins of white grapes contain colour compounds, tannins, and aromatic precursors. Leave the juice in contact with them long enough and you get something that looks, behaves, and tastes quite unlike a standard white wine.
The name “orange wine” was popularised in the early 2000s. British wine writer and importer Simon Woolf is widely credited with helping to spread the term, partly because “skin-contact white” is accurate but uninviting, and “amber wine” (the Georgian term) leads people to assume it's fortified. The name stuck, despite the fact that orange wine contains no oranges and is not always especially orange in colour.
Nobody ever said that wine naming made sense.
Worth knowing: The colour of an orange wine tells you roughly how long it spent on the skins. Pale golden-amber usually means days to a couple of weeks. Deep copper or brownish-amber usually means months. The colour is a useful rough guide before you even taste it.
How It Is Made
Conventional white wine is made by pressing white grapes quickly and fermenting the juice away from the skins, to preserve freshness, delicacy, and pale colour. This is the whole point of most white winemaking: you want the fruit, the acidity, the aromatics, and you want them clean.
Orange wine takes a different path. After harvesting, the grapes are crushed but the skins (and sometimes the stems and seeds) are left in contact with the juice during fermentation: sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. The winemaker is extracting from the skins exactly what a red wine winemaker extracts when making a Cabernet or a Grenache: colour, tannin, texture, and complexity.
The maceration time varies enormously. A short skin contact of a few days produces a lightly amber wine with gentle tannins and heightened texture. A maceration of six months in a clay amphora (the traditional Georgian qvevri method) produces something far deeper, more structured, and more challenging.
The spectrum runs from “a little more interesting than a white wine” to “a totally different drink”.
Many orange wines are produced with minimal intervention: wild-yeast fermentation, no fining or filtration, little or no added sulphur. This is not required, but the natural wine movement and orange wine developed in parallel, and a lot of producers share a philosophy as well as a technique.
Where It Comes From
The oldest orange wine tradition in the world is Georgian. The Republic of Georgia has been making wine in clay vessels called qvevri for approximately eight thousand years. These large, beeswax-lined amphorae are buried in the ground, where the consistent temperature allows extended maceration and fermentation, and the results can be extraordinary: complex, savoury, long-lived, and unlike anything else in the wine world.
In Europe, the tradition of skin-contact whites survived most strongly in two adjacent regions: northeastern Italy, and Slovenia. The Radikon estate in Friuli, Italy, and the producer Joskô Gravner were central to the revival of extended maceration whites in the 1990s, and their wines remain the benchmark for the serious end of the style.
Worth knowing: The technique has since spread everywhere.
You will now find skin-contact whites from Alsace, the Loire, the Rhône, Spain, Austria, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, the United States, and yes, England.
The grape variety matters less than the technique and the winemaker’s intention, though aromatic varieties like Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Muscat tend to produce particularly interesting results.
What It Tastes Like
This is where I need to be really honest, because orange wine tastes nothing like what most people expect white wine to taste like, and the gap between expectation and reality has put off a lot of people who might otherwise have liked it.
You almost have to drink it with your eyes closed.
The tannins are the first surprise. White wine does not normally have tannins: that dry, grippy sensation you associate with red wine. Orange wine does. Depending on maceration length and grape variety, they can be subtle (a gentle grip and added texture) or pronounced (something close to the astringency of strong tea). This is not a fault. It is the point. But it does mean you need to adjust your expectations before you open the bottle.
Typical flavour descriptors for orange wine include: dried apricot, orange peel, quince, dried mango, hazelnut, almond, beeswax, chamomile, dried flowers, tea, ginger, honey, and, in more oxidative examples, dried fig, walnut, and Seville orange marmalade. There is often a savoury, almost fermented quality that can suggest kombucha, sourdough, or miso. This sounds alarming on paper but does taste considerably better than it sounds.
What you will not find, generally, is the bright, fresh, citrusy acidity of a young Sauvignon Blanc or the delicate floral lift of an unoaked Riesling. Orange wine tends toward weight, texture, and complexity rather than freshness and precision.
I first encountered it during a long, lazy lunch at Bedales in Borough Market. It was our second bottle and was a case of "that sounds interesting, let's try it". I've dug back through my Vivino notes and think it was a Bucciato, Soave Classico Superiore and my notes say "Almost savoury. Ginger, apple and honey with a lovely zingy finish."
The tannins, the oxidative notes, the absence of fresh fruit: the things people often dislike about orange wine are exactly the things that make it interesting with food. If you have tried it without food and found it strange, try it with dinner. It transforms.
Is It Worth Trying?
Yes. With the caveat that you should try the right one first.
The category is genuinely wide. There are orange wines that are subtle and approachable (a few days of skin contact producing a wine that is essentially a more textured, amber-tinted white), and there are orange wines that have spent six months buried in a clay pot and taste like something a Georgian farmer might have drunk in 600 BC, which can be magnificent but quite a lot to ask of someone on their first attempt.
If you are new to the style, look for a producer who labels the maceration time (a sign of transparency and usually of quality), and start at the lighter end: two to three weeks of skin contact rather than six months. Georgian producers like Pheasant’s Tears and Iago’s Wine make accessible, well-made examples.
As I mentioned earlier, The Radikon estate and Joskô Gravner in Friuli represent the serious, long-maceration end of the spectrum, worth working up to.
What to Eat With It
This is where orange wine genuinely earns its place on the table. It occupies a food-pairing niche that no other wine fills as comfortably.
The tannins and structure make it far more at home with rich, spiced, or fermented foods than any conventional white. Think: slow-roasted pork with fennel, lamb with harissa, roast chicken with a miso glaze, mushroom risotto, a substantial cheese board (particularly washed-rind and aged hard cheeses), Japanese and Korean food generally, Middle Eastern dishes built around spice and yoghurt, and strongly flavoured vegetarian food like lentil dishes, roasted aubergine, or a good dal. My mouth is watering just typing that paragraph!
It is also excellent with the kind of food that defeats most whites: oily fish like mackerel or sardines, smoked salmon, cured meats. The tannins cut through fat in the same way a light red would.
What it does not do well with: delicate, lightly seasoned food where you want a clean, fresh white to complement rather than compete. A simply steamed piece of sole with lemon butter will make the orange wine seem heavy and overbearing. Save that for the Muscadet.
Which Glass to Use
Orange wine does not fit neatly into the conventional wine glass paradigm, and this matters more than it might seem.
Standard white wine glasses are designed for wines with fresh acidity, delicate aromatics, and no tannin. They tend to be smaller-bowled, which preserves cooler temperatures and focuses volatile aromatics toward the nose. This works beautifully for a crisp Chablis or a fragrant Riesling. For an orange wine, it creates problems: the small bowl restricts aeration and concentrates astringency, making the tannins seem harsher than they are, and the narrow opening prevents the more complex, layered aromas from fully developing.
What orange wine actually needs is closer to what a full-bodied white (or even a lighter red) requires: a larger bowl that allows the aromas to open up, some surface area for aeration, and a wider opening that softens the tannic impression and delivers the wine to the right part of the palate.
| Glass | Best for | Why it works for orange wine | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Riedel Vinum Montrachet | Serious orange wines; long-macerated styles | Designed for full-bodied, textured whites. The larger bowl gives the wine room to open; the wider mouth softens tannin and concentrates complex aromatics. | £47.15 a pair |
| Riedel Veritas Oaked Chardonnay | Premium orange wines; qvevri styles | Same logic as the Vinum, with the precision and finesse of the Veritas range. The glass to reach for when the bottle has cost you that bit more. | £49.95 a pair |
| Riedel Veloce Chardonnay | Everyday orange wine drinking | Excellent quality at an accessible price. Handles the weight and aromatic complexity of orange wine well. The practical, elegant everyday choice. | £49.95 a pair |
| Riedel Grape White Wine | Budget-friendly starting point | A versatile option that outperforms anything not designed for the job, though it does fall short of the ideal shape for a more serious bottle. | £23.95 a pair |
What to avoid: A narrow Riesling-style glass, a standard small-bowled white wine glass, or anything flute-shaped. These concentrate rather than open orange wine and make the tannins seem harsher than they are.
Find the right glass for orange wine, and everything else.
Shop Riedel Vinum Chardonnay Shop Riedel Veritas Oaked Chardonnay Shop Riedel Veloce ChardonnayServing Temperature
Orange wine is best served at around 12 - 14°C, slightly warmer than most white wines (which typically want 8 - 12°C) but cooler than most reds.
The reason is the same as for any tannic wine: serve it too cold and the tannins will taste hard and astringent, and the aromatic complexity will shut down. Serve it too warm and it will seem heavy and faintly spirit-like. The 12 - 14°C range is where orange wine opens up and shows you why people rave about it.
In practice: take it out of the fridge about 20–30 minutes before serving, or pour it shortly after pulling it from a wine rack at cellar temperature. It should feel slightly cool to the touch, but not cold.
Summary
Orange wine: white wine made like red wine, amber in the glass, grippy on the palate, magnificent with spiced lamb or a Korean Bulgogi, best in a Chardonnay-shaped bowl at around 13°C.
It has been waiting eight thousand years for you to try it.
So, try it with food. In the right glass. At the right temperature.
Then tell me you don't like it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is orange wine actually made from oranges?
No. Orange wine is white wine made with extended skin contact during fermentation. The colour and name come from the amber/orange hue that develops as a result of skin maceration, not from any citrus fruit.
Why does orange wine taste different from regular white wine?
Because it is made differently. Standard white wine is fermented away from the grape skins. Orange wine keeps the juice in contact with the skins for days, weeks, or months. This extracts colour, tannins, and a completely different aromatic profile, giving the wine texture, structure, and complexity that conventional white wines simply do not have.
Is orange wine the same as natural wine?
Not necessarily. Orange wine is defined by its production method (skin contact). Natural wine is a broader philosophical category covering wines made with minimal intervention, which often includes orange wine but also covers conventionally coloured whites and reds. Many orange wines are made naturally; some are not.
Does orange wine go off more quickly than regular white wine once opened?
Generally, it is more robust once opened than a conventional white, partly because the tannins and phenolics from skin contact act as natural preservatives. A well-made orange wine will typically hold for two to four days after opening if kept sealed and cool. The more structured, long-macerated examples can last even longer.
I tried orange wine once and didn’t like it. Should I try again?
Yes, if you tried it without food. Orange wine is among the most food-dependent wines on the table: it transforms with the right dish. Also consider whether you started at the challenging end of the spectrum. A lightly macerated example from Friuli or a Georgian white will be a very different experience from a six-month qvevri wine from a natural wine producer. The category is wide.
What temperature should I serve orange wine at?
Around 12–14°C, slightly warmer than most white wines and cooler than most reds. Take it out of the fridge about 20–30 minutes before serving.
Which Riedel glass is best for orange wine?
The Riedel Vinum Chardonnay or the Riedel Veritas Oaked Chardonnay glass are the ideal shapes. Both offer the larger bowl and wider opening that orange wine needs to show its best. The Riedel Veloce Chardonnay is an excellent everyday option. Avoid narrow white wine glasses or anything flute-shaped.
Can I age orange wine?
Many orange wines, particularly the longer-macerated Georgian and Friulian styles, age extremely well, often better than conventional whites, because the phenolics and tannins provide a natural protective framework. A well-made Radikon or Gravner can age for fifteen to twenty years. Lighter, more modern examples are generally best within five years of harvest.
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