I’ve only had a few orange wines. Some have been amazing and some have been pretty bad… But I have noticed even the orange wines that I like I would only limit myself to a glass. It reminded me the first time I had purchased a bottle of Saxum and opened it with some friends. It was good, and had its place and could be appreciated, but I could only have one glass.
I get the impression he tasted one or two before going to that restaurant and trying a few.
Missing the point, of course, where the author here makes exactly the type of ignorant assumption about a broad category of wines, based on one sub-category.
Why then not call some and some ? Well, we do. We have broad terms and more and more specific terms. We’ve eliminated confusion in some ways over the years, so “Chablis” can no longer be used as a generic term for cheap white wine, for example. I’m just arguing for clarity and against the sort of ignorance this author displays. And, once again, NONE of countries that traditionally makes these wines use the term “orange wine”. That’s a recently coined English language term. The translations I’m aware of are “amber wine”. Why confuse people with yet another non-literal wine term so early in the game. Why not a more accurate and attractive term for the broad category, and use “orange wine” for the sub-category it literally describes?
Once again, when wine people here hear the term “orange wine” they think deeply colored and oxidative. That’s where the term has its meaning here. It’s sort of like you’re telling me we should call all motor vehicles “trucks”.
Lorrys Wes!
Stepping out of the wine world for a minute, it is true that the term is confusing.
My wife had no clue what we were talking about last week. She grew up in a wine drinking household and her parents had plenty of friends who knew a lot about wine, but she had never heard the term. I gave her the article. She laughed and said that now she’d never forget exactly what those wines were. Then she asked if the wines were really all that bad. I told her it’s like everything else. If you find someone who knows what he’s doing, the wines will be fine. And I reminded her that we’ve had a few recently.
Last week someone told me that she was in a wine store and asked about orange wines. The girl working there told her that she didn’t think they had any wines made out of oranges, most of their wines were made from grapes.
That got me to wondering what an actual orange wine would taste like, and if you would leave the skins in contact with the juice or not.
A friend has made a bunch of citrus wines, including with my fruit. Juice only, no rind. Meyer Lemon, Rangpur Mandarin, Blood Orange, Grapefruit, maybe others. The first two can be quite good. There’s an issue with yeast and citric acid which sometimes happens, producing some VA, which he and many people don’t mind. When that doesn’t happen, they are very clean, pure expressions of the fruit.
Orange wine is not necessarily oxidative or natural.
Lots of it “looks” oxidized and presents atypical for the variety. Since it is not the norm, one must expect abnormal.
But I love them, I make them and my wife and I drink them . . . often.
Amazingly good food wines.
Best, Jim
The wines I have tried from Georgia had some noted tannins, found that of interest.
That they are.
And I tend to like mature wines, because they often show more complexity than their younger counterparts. I’ve found orange wines, and some natural wines, to offer a lot of the complexity up front, without needing nearly as much age. So in that regard while many of these wines either can’t/shouldn’t be aged, or it’s a role of the dice, many don’t need it either.
Wow. My respect for you increases! I’d love to try one some day. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Once again, I need to point out that that is a local thing. When I go around Europe, people know that “orange wine” and “skin contact white” are synonyms and +90% don’t have anything to do with oxidation.
I understand perfectly your point and why you think it is necessary to use those terms locally to avoid confusion, but promoting the use of the term everywhere else feels rather unnecessary, since people tend to know what kinds of wines orange wines are, and if they don’t, they don’t automatically think they are either oxidative or made from oranges.
So instead of red-red wine he makes orange-orange wine? How cool is that!
Like Greg, love to try them if I ever get the chance.
Perhaps we could use the colour name that we all give to the third colour (not red or green) in traffic lights? 
Agreed, I find them too serious. I’ll have one glass of it and I can find that interesting, but not really enjoyable for extended drinking.
I don’t get this at all. We enjoy some orange wines without thinking about them too much, much as we do roses. Sure I’ve had orange wines that were tannic enough I’d think they were red if served truly blind. I’ve had others that made us argue oxidized versus oxidative. But most are just white wines that see a little skin contact and pick up a tiny bit of body, and maybe some complexity. Great for glugging on the porch, just as one would a rose.
Orange wines don’t have to be intellectually challenging to be good!
I’m with Brady, orange wines have as large an array of styles as white or red. Though as I typed that I realize I don’t think I’ve ever had an overoaked one, I suppose that style is probably antithetical to the philosophy of people likely to make orange wine. Or maybe I’ve just been lucky.
Admittedly, I’ve not had a ton of spectrum of orange wines. I was mainly talking about the Gravners and the Kabaj’s etc. Even the SQN Viognier I tried was in this vein. I realize there is a whole spectrum here that I’ve probably missed. I myself made my amphorae Marsanne with 4 months of skin contact, and it never became as tannic or fruit-obscuring as the ones I mentioned. So it’s very, very varietal and elevage specific as well.
You pointed out in Finnish you have a different word for the fruit than the color. The traditional countries that make it use words in their languages that translate to amber, not orange. The term “orange” is only in English, correct? And recently coined. Did the producers all switch to using the English language term? Is there a single producer in the entire world that has the word “orange” on the label of a wine that isn’t darkly hued?
Anyway, I regularly see slurs about orange wines now, just like we’ve been seeing that about natural wines for years, and organic wines since the really bad ones from the '70s masochistic suffering-for-the-planet health food movement.
Yes, it must depend on the maceration time and variety to an extent. And in Georgia the percentage of skins used in the fermentation is another variable.
In the east of the country (Kakheti) the tradition is to use all the skins, and throw the stalks in as well for good measure - while in the west they are traditionally more sparing in the use of skins, using smaller percentages or just macerating for a short time before the main fermentation in the qvevri. Those are the traditions, but it also varies from winemaker to winemaker, and what they want to achieve with a particular wine.
When did Borowitz start writing wine for the New Yorker?
![[whistle.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/87d24eb81ec6dc01d84f3d6c19fa9a357e90218e.gif "whistle"){kind=small}
I think Levi used to pair orange wines with a fish course that used to follow the meat course at Alta. I never had the pleasure of dining there.