An overview of orange wine, including how skin contact with white grapes creates deeper color, texture, and savory, complex character.
White grapes hang on the vine until they are ripe. They require a great deal of sun to ripen both the pulp and skins, accumulate sugar, and develop concentrated fruit flavors.
Once the grapes are ready to be harvested, they are picked by hand or machine and immediately chilled in the winery to keep them fresh. At this stage, it is important that the grapes aren’t exposed to too much oxygen so they don’t spoil and develop unwanted bacteria.
In the winery, the white grapes soak with their skins for days, weeks, or months to extract added flavor, tannins and texture to the clear juice. This process gives the juice an orange hue.
(In contrast, traditional white grape juice is not soaked on its skins and remains a clear color).
After a long soak, the grapes are pressed to remove the juice away from the skins.
The orange grape juice is placed into fermentation tanks, vessels, or barrels.
Yeast are added to the grape juice to consume the sugars and turn them into alcohol. This process may take a couple of weeks.
The temperatures are a bit warmer than traditional white wines to extract as much fruit flavor as possible left over from the skins.
When fermentation completes, the winemaker must decide what to to do next. The wine may be:
1. Bottled for immediate consumption
2. Aged in oak to develop additional flavors and texture
3. Stored in a vat and bottled at a later date
