Orange wine

Pinot gris, showing markedly different colorations.

Orange wine is wine made from white wine grape varieties that have spent some maceration time in contact with the grape skins. Typically white wine production involves crushing the grapes and quickly moving the juice off the skins into the fermentation vessel. The skins contain color pigment, phenols and tannins that are often considered undesirable for white wines while for red wines, skin contact and maceration is a vital part of the winemaking process that gives red wines its color, flavor and texture. Orange wines get their name from the darker, slightly orange tinge that the white wines receive due to their contact with the coloring pigments of the grape skins.^[1][2]

This winemaking style is essentially the opposite of rosé production which involves getting red wine grapes quickly off their skins, leaving the wine with a slightly pinkish hue. However in the case of Pinot gris, among the more popular grapes to apply a skin-contact treatment that is neither red nor white, the diffuse nature of the term becomes illustrated, as both an orange wine and a rosé might achieve a similar expression of pink/orange/salmon-colored wine.^[3]

The practice has a long history in winemaking dating back thousands of years to the Eurasian wine producing country of Georgia.^[1][4] In recent years the practice has been adopted by Italian winemakers, initially in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia wine region,^[5] while there is also production in, Slovenia, Croatia, France, Germany, New Zealand, and California.^[4][6]

Orange wines were not uncommon in Italy in the 1950s and 1960s, but gradually became obscure as technically correct and fresh white wines came to dominate the market.^[4][7]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Bonné, Jon, San Francisco Chronicle (October 11, 2009). Soaking white grapes in skins is orange crush
2. ^ Asimov, Eric, The New York Times: The Pour (October 8, 2009). Orange Wine Edges Toward the Mainstream, Slightly
3. ^ Bonné, Jon, San Francisco Chronicle: The Cellarist (October 13, 2009). When is a wine orange?
4. ^ ^{a b c} Vinforum (June 29, 2010). Vinforum tester orangeviner (Norwegian)
5. ^ Bonné, Jon, San Francisco Chronicle: Inside Scoop SF (June 15, 2010). Shedding light on orange wine
6. ^ Asimov, Eric, The New York Times: The Pour (August 3, 2009). Orange Wines
7. ^ Dalheim, Ulf, Adresseavisen (September 4, 2009). Ikke på ville veier (Norwegian)