It’s got a few different names: Orange Wine, Skin Fermented Wine, Skin Contact Wine… They all mean the same thing — a white wine made with the same method in which red wines are made.
Orange wine is an ancient process that developed in Eastern Europe. Why? Well, when you want a wine with more body and texture and you’re growing white grapes, then you change the winemaking approach to capture tannins and create more structure, weight, and depth.
In the United States and Western Europe, white wines are almost always made by pressing the grapes immediately after harvest. This separates the juice from the skins and solids, and the juice is fermented on its own, creating a clean, clear, finished wine. Red wines are fermented with all of the grape (skin, pulp, seeds, and juice) in the mix, and as the fermentation progresses, phenolic compounds and color are released and then re-captured, bound-up in what becomes the finished wine.
It turns out, as they discovered in places like Croatia and Slovenia, certain white grapes have fascinating flavors and excellent structure when they’re fermented on the skins. Entirely new aromatics and fruit profiles are created, and these skin-fermented wines pair with new classes of cuisine. The white skin tannins meld amazingly well with spicy food.
The term Orange Wine refers to the color (not the flavor). It’s attributable to the orange tint that is typically created with the extra oxidative environment of a skin fermentation (although there are shades and exceptions like our Ribolla Gialla, which is a deep yellow/orange).
Typically, the more oxidative the conditions, the darker the color. This has flavor implications as well. The European skin-fermented wines tend to have more oxidative flavors (think Sherry) due to the winemaking approach, which often involves fermenting and storing in amphoras. My approach is a fresher California version, but not to take anything away from the crazy variety and complexity of our European friends. They’re worth trying from both continents.