Orange wine is white wine made the way red wine is made: the juice ferments in contact with its grape skins instead of being pressed off them right away. That skin contact pulls color, tannin, and texture out of grapes that would otherwise make a pale, clean white, and it is why the finished wine can run anywhere from light gold to deep amber. Nothing about it involves actual oranges. It is a process, not a fruit.
What is orange wine, exactly?
Conventional white wine is made by pressing grapes and fermenting only the juice, with skins and seeds discarded almost immediately. Orange wine skips that step. The skins, and sometimes the seeds and stems, stay in the tank or vessel with the juice through some or all of fermentation. This is called skin contact, or maceration, and it can last anywhere from a few days to several months depending on the winemaker and the grape.
The result is a white wine with structure you would normally associate with red: tannin, a savory edge, and a color deep enough to look like it belongs in a different glass. Some people call it amber wine instead of orange wine, which is arguably more accurate, since the color usually lands closer to honey or copper than to citrus.
Where did orange wine come from?
Skin-contact white wine is not a new invention. It is close to the oldest form of winemaking there is. In Georgia, winemakers have fermented white grapes on their skins in buried clay vessels called qvevri for thousands of years, a tradition recognized by UNESCO as part of the country's cultural heritage. Grapes, skins, and stems went into the qvevri together, and the wine emerged months later with color, tannin, and texture built in.
That style nearly disappeared elsewhere in the 20th century as stainless steel, temperature control, and cultured yeast pushed winemaking toward cleaner, paler, fruitier whites. The turning point came in Friuli, in northeastern Italy, in the 1990s, when winemakers including Josko Gravner and Stanko Radikon walked away from the modern style they had helped pioneer and went back to extended skin contact, eventually adopting Georgian qvevri themselves. Their neighbors in Friuli and across the border in Slovenia's Brda followed, and the style spread from there. The term "orange wine" itself is generally credited to British importer David Harvey, who used it in the early 2000s to give the category a name people could remember.
How is orange wine made?
The basic steps:
- White grapes are picked and, unlike conventional white winemaking, not pressed right away.
- Grapes go into a fermentation vessel, skins and juice together. Some producers include stems; most do not.
- Fermentation happens on the skins, with regular punch downs or pump overs to keep the cap of skins in contact with the liquid.
- Skin contact can last anywhere from a few days to a year or more. Longer contact means deeper color and firmer tannin.
- The wine is pressed off the skins, then usually aged in a neutral vessel (old barrel, amphora, or steel) before bottling.
Because the process leaves more solids and phenolic compounds in the wine, orange wines are often left unfiltered, which is part of why they can look hazy in the glass. That haze is not a flaw. It is a byproduct of a wine that was left more alone than a conventional white. If you want the fuller picture on why so many low-intervention wines skip filtration, we cover it in Unfiltered and Unfined Wine, Explained.
What does orange wine taste like?
Skin contact changes both texture and flavor. Expect:
- Tannin. Not as firm as a red wine, usually, but a real grip on the finish that you do not get from a standard white.
- Tea and dried fruit. Black tea, dried apricot, orange peel, and baked apple show up often, along with a savory, sometimes nutty quality.
- Less immediate fruit, more structure. Orange wines tend to taste less like fresh fruit and more like something that has spent time thinking about it. That is the oxidative and skin-derived character coming through.
- A wide range. A wine with four days of skin contact tastes nothing like one with four months. Orange wine is a spectrum, not a single flavor.
Why does orange wine pair so well with food?
The tannin and savory character that make orange wine unusual also make it flexible at the table. It has enough structure to stand up to dishes that would flatten a delicate white: braised vegetables, mushrooms, aged cheese, fermented and pickled things, roast chicken, even lighter meats. It behaves like a red in some ways and a white in others, which means it fills a gap that neither category covers well on its own. If you keep one bottle on hand for the meals that never quite match your wine list, an orange wine is a reasonable answer.
Orange wine vs. rosé: what's the difference?
People sometimes lump orange wine and rosé together because both land somewhere between white and red on the color chart. The winemaking is actually the inverse of each other.
- Rosé starts with red grapes and gets minimal skin contact, just enough to tint the juice pink before it is pressed off and fermented like a white.
- Orange wine starts with white grapes and gets extended skin contact, fermenting on the skins the way a red wine would.
Rosé is a white wine made from red grapes. Orange wine is a red wine process applied to white grapes. Same color wheel, opposite direction.
How do you buy your first bottle of orange wine?
A few things worth knowing before you shop:
- Start with a shorter maceration. Wines with a few days to a couple of weeks of skin contact are a gentler introduction than a wine that spent months on its skins.
- Expect some haze. Cloudiness usually means the wine was not heavily filtered, not that anything is wrong.
- Serve it slightly cooler than a red, slightly warmer than a chilled white. The tannin and texture hold up better a few degrees above refrigerator-cold.
- Check the grape. Aromatic varieties tend to carry skin contact differently than neutral ones. Either can be excellent; they just express it differently.
At Coteau Pavot, our first orange wine is the 2025 Albariño Amber, California V.D.S., a skin-fermented Albariño from Gomes Vineyard. It spends 15 days on its skins with regular pump overs and punch downs, then ages in neutral barrique on the lees for seven months before bottling. The result is more textured and aromatic than our standard Albariño, with dried orange peel, apricot, and stone fruit, plus tea and herb notes and a finish that is dry and lightly tannic. We also make an orange wine from a different grape entirely: the 2024 Rorick Heritage Vineyard Grenache Gris Orange, 17 days on skins from Grenache Gris grown at Rorick Heritage Vineyard in Murphys, with fresh orange peel and peach skin aromatics and the fine-grained tannin Grenache tends to carry. Tasting them side by side is a good way to see how much the base grape shapes an orange wine, even when the process is similar. For more on how we approach winemaking generally, see What Is Natural Wine?
FAQ
Is orange wine sweet? No, most orange wines are dry. The color comes from skin contact, not sugar, so do not expect a sweet wine just because the color looks warm.
Does orange wine have more sulfites than other wines? Not inherently. Sulfite levels depend on the producer's choices, not the skin-contact technique. Some orange wines use minimal sulfur, others use more, the same range you would see across white or red wine generally.
Is orange wine the same as natural wine? Not necessarily. Orange wine describes a winemaking technique, skin contact on white grapes, while natural wine describes a broader philosophy around farming and minimal additions. Many natural winemakers make orange wines, and many orange wines are made by natural winemakers, but the terms are not interchangeable.
Why is orange wine sometimes cloudy? Extended skin contact leaves more particulate and phenolic material in the wine, and many orange wines are bottled unfiltered to preserve texture and flavor. That haze is a sign of the process, not a defect.
What foods should I avoid pairing with orange wine? Very delicate, high-acid dishes, like a simple green salad with light vinaigrette, can get overwhelmed by the tannin. Orange wine tends to do better with dishes that have some weight, fat, or umami to meet it.
Brian Hurley is a co-founder of Coteau Pavot.
If you want to taste the difference skin contact makes, the 2025 Albariño Amber is a good place to start, or join the wine club to see what we release next.