So what exactly is orange wine? First of all, no, it is not made from oranges.

Otherwise known as skin-contact wine, orange wine made from white wine 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 is a vital part of the winemaking process that gives red wine its color, flavor and texture.

In other words, orange wine is a type of white wine that’s produced similarly to red wine, by allowing grape seeds and skin to stay in contact with grape juice for a period of time. This process creates a light to deep orange hue, depending on the way the wine is produced.