What Is an Orange Wine?

Orange wine is the casual name for a skin contact or skin macerated wine made from white wine grapes. Orange wines have been around forever! If fact, orange wine style was more of the normal white wine style back in the day. White wine macerates with the skins for a matter of hours, 8 - 12 usually, whereas orange wines have extended maceration anywhere from hours to months. They can be made from any white wine grapes and are stylistically quite different depending on the grape, length of maceration, and who is making them. It’s as if you treated a white wine the way that red wines are made! The result is generally a fuller mouthfeel with more texture from the skin's tannins.