It Was All Orange

What are orange wines?

Orange wines, aka skin contact wines, are simply those made with the juice (extracted from the grapes) hanging out with the grape's leftover skin! Imagine crushing a grape to extract all the delicious juice inside. What's left (the squished grape) still has plenty of flavour, acidity, and other compounds. By soaking these skins in the juice, you can gently extract the extra colour and flavour. This is not a new thing. Thousands of years ago, before people said they only drink Pinot Gris and the like, pretty much all white wines would've been made with some degree of skin contact. In fact in Georgia, a country with a long and fabled history of winemaking, the traditional way to make white wine still involves skin contact! They go a little crazy on it, breaking it down into 'golden' and 'amber' wines, depending how long the skin contact goes on for. Given their texture and power, it helps if you imagine skin contact/orange wines as a cross between a red and a white. The ageing with the skins draws out additional tannin, so the wines can often have a bit of grip or a touch of bitterness to them. The flavour profile can also tend towards a riper, more tropical spectrum (dependent on the grape variety, of course), but it's common to see flavours and aromas of peach, apricot, and pineapple, as well as orange blossom, beeswax, and honey. They often have a slight saltiness to them, which further enhances their food-friendliness.

3 amazing orange wines to try

In this special pack you'll enjoy: EdenFlo 'Lemon Krush' 2022 The Lemon Crush is crushingly good and we wish you good luck at sharing this delicious wine around. This is a new edge on an old school blend of Semillon and Chardonnay and immediately you’ll be intoxicated by a nutty, lemon skin and citrus balance washed over by a tantalising morishness which has a salty edge. Gustavo Martinez 'Kilako' Orange Moscatel 2022 This is an orange wine made from the Moscatel grape, more commonly used to produce late harvested, dessert wines. This captures the aromatic intensity of the grape, but in another form - the extended skin contact gives the wine a massive hit of tropical fruit, honey and tea. Unfiltered, textural and a little wild, it's a perfumed glass of wonder. Radikon 'Slatnik' Chardonnay Blend 2022 Slatnik is a blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Vert - aka the grape once known as Tocai Friuliano (until the Hungarian wine industry helped ban the name, but that's another story). Fermented over a week on skins (which is full-bodied red territory), this fascinating orange wine has so much going on, from the floral marmalade and orange blossom hints, through to the taut, tangerine-tipped and grippy palate, right through the finish. What a wine!

Interesting to note

So, what's the difference between orange/skin-contact wines and rosé? They are entirely different styles of wine. Rosé is made using red grapes, giving it a pink/rosé colour, whereas orange wine is made using white grapes, giving it an orange/amber colour. Too easy!