EXPLAINED Orange wines

Orange wine has gone through a transformation in the last decade. Go back a few years and those who knew about this ‘third’ colour of wine viewed it as niche, and presided over by obscure barrel-fiddlers in the hills of northern Italy, eastern Europe and beyond.

Nowadays it’s everywhere; supped and championed in trendy city centre ‘tap rooms’ where modish insiders drink it by-the-glass from Enomatic dispensers and discuss skin contact.

These are the extremes, but it’s fair to say that orange wine is increasingly common among wine drinkers, found on restaurant wine lists, in gastro-pubs and on the shelves of many a discerning indie merchant. You can even find it in Asda.

But what makes it ‘orange’? Expert on orange wines and author of Amber Revolution: How the World Learned to Love Orange Wine Simon J Woolf defines it as ‘effectively... a white wine made as if it were a red’. He explains: ‘The term is increasingly used for white wines where the grapes were left in contact with their skins for days, weeks or even months.

The result differs not only in colour; the wine is also markedly more intense on the nose and palate, and sometimes with significant tannins.’

The term itself, unlike the style of wine it describes, is relatively new. ‘It was coined in 2004 by David Harvey of UK wine importer Raeburn Fine Wines, while working in Frank Cornelissen’s cellar in Sicily’s Etna region,’ says Woolf.

‘The name may not be ideal, but this style needs its own category,’ says natural wine pioneer Saša Radikon from the Radikon winery in Oslavia, Collio. ‘If customers order a white wine and it turns out to be this surprising dark colour, they might not be so happy.’

The joy of orange wines – or amber wines, a term some prefer – is that they can combine the weight, texture and complexity of red wines with the freshness and verve of whites.

Woolf is quick to point out that the colour comes from the skin of the grapes and not from oxidation, which is a common misconception. ‘Although the winemaking style is often oxidative [open-top oak or plastic fermenters are popular], producers typically seal vessels after fermentation to ensure the wines stay fresh,’ he says.

Today orange wine is made in most wine-producing countries, from Swartland in South Africa to Surrey in southeast England (see right), but it’s in the traditional ‘orange heartlands’ of Georgia, Slovenia and Italy that some of the most highly prized examples can be found. ‘The technique can be tricky to pull off without considerable winemaking skill and experience,’ says Woolf. ‘Very few producers in the New World have been brave enough to try.’