Besides sparkling, red, white, rosé and sweet, the 'orange' or 'peel' category is increasingly appearing on the wine list. These are wines made from white grapes that ferment with the skin, giving them more colour and a different flavour. Those wines were recently on the WINELIFE tasting table. Orange wine connoisseur and restaurant owner Birk Heijkants joined us. - TEXT MAGDA VAN DER RIJST | IMAGE EDITORS
17 x Schilwijn in all shades of orange
What is the first decision you make when you go for a glass of wine? Indeed, you choose a colour. Do you want white, red, pink or maybe orange? That fourth colour is gaining ground. Increasingly, you see orange on restaurant wine lists and in wine shops. Not that this is a modern find, orange wine has been around for centuries, but for about 20 years now, more and more winemakers have been picking up this way of making wine. Because that's what orange means: a winemaking process. In fact, orange wine is a white wine for which the grapes ferment with the skins, just as happens with blue grapes for red wine.
Approach & criteria
We asked importers and other wine sellers to send in their orange wines, i.e. white wines that ferment with the skin just like red wine. There were no more rules for ending up on the WINELIFE tasting table. Wines came in with 3 days of skin contact, but also with several weeks to a year. Such a difference in method obviously affects flavour, but certainly also colour.
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Curious to find out more about the orange wines? You can read about them in WINELIFE Magazine 78. Order individual issues here!
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