First made in Georgia many thousands of years ago, where grapes were inserted and crushed into clay tanks, placed into the ground and softened for over half a year before separating the orange skins from the liquid. It slowly became unpopular and many countries prefered white wine which was fresher. A few centries ago winemakers started harvesting orange wine again and slowly but surely has become much more popular.

How is orange wine made today?

After the winemaker has picked their grapes from the vines and those grapes are brought into the cellar for the production side of the process, they then go through a maceration period where they stay in-contact with their skins before spending X amount of time aging in whatever the vessel of choice may be. This maceration period spent in-contact with their skins gives the juice more colour and a lot of tannins, of course depending on how long the maceration period goes on for, which both supply the finished wine with more texture and structure. 

Then you have conventional made white wines, which are made relatively similar only for the most part during the maceration period the grapes are removed from their skins and stems which allows the juice and then wine to appear as typically pale/lemony as possible. Some of the less corporate although still conventional wineries might allow their white grapes to macerate in-contact with the skins for a brief one or two day period for a more wholesome looking finished white wine, but that’s as outlandish as the conventional wine industry gets. 

The reason we’re filling you up with all this information on red and white wine production is because orange wine isn’t a newfound type of wine that’s made from oranges. Orange wine, or in better terms skin-contact wine, is a collaborative type of natural wine that gets its production methods from both the red and white wine making process. 

Orange wine is made with white grape varieties - those grapes are brought into a cellar for the production process and during the initial maceration/fermentation period before aging, they’re left in-contact with their skins for x amount of time to give the juice more colour and tannin profile, much like the red wine making process. This type of wine generally goes by three different names in case you’re ever looking for it on a bar menu or online; orange wine, amber wine and skin contact wine.