Orange Wine

Orange wine?  Yes, orange wine.  But, orange as in the color orange and not wine made from oranges.  Cindee and I had our first taste of orange wine at Terra Madre in 2018 at one of the dinners we attended.

The chef that evening was Ana Roš.  Ana and her husband own Hiša Franko in Kobarid, Slovenia.  Ana sources ninety-five percent of her core ingredients from the surrounding area, including game from local hunters and seafood from a saltwater lagoon fifty kilometers from the restaurant.

That evening, Ana paired the trout dish she prepared with a Radikon Ribolla white wine.  A fantastic combination, the tonka vinegar balanced nicely with the subtle sour notes of the orange wine to create a pleasant combination of flavors with the trout providing the centerpiece of the plating.

What makes orange wine so interesting is that while it is a white wine, it has many unique characteristics which stand out from other types of white wine.  The wine is vinified as thought it were a red.  Deep orange yellow in color with a myriad of aromas: nuts, dried
Trout, whey, poppy seeds, beetroot with tonka vinegar
apricots, lemon, orange, fennel & sage.

 Orange wine, also known as skin-contact white wine, skin-fermented white wine, or amber wine, is a type of wine made from white grapes grapes where the grape skins are not removed, as in typical white wine production, and stay in contact with the juice for days or even months. This contrasts with conventional white wine production, which 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 would normally be considered undesirable for white wines, while for red wines skin contact and maceration is a vital part of the winemaking process that gives red wine its color, flavor, and texture.