Orange wine is not a colour — it is a method. White grapes fermented with their skins, sometimes for days, sometimes for months. The result is amber or deep gold in colour, with tannins, texture and an aromatic world of dried apricots, tea, nuts and spice that is completely unlike either white or red wine.
The method is ancient — Georgia has been making skin-contact wine in qvevri for eight thousand years. Its modern revival began in Friuli in the 1990s, when Joško Gravner returned from Georgia and Stanko Radikon independently arrived at the same conclusion. From that small village on the Italian-Slovenian border, orange wine spread to become one of the defining categories of natural wine.
This is our selection of the finest orange wines in the world, drawn from our list of the world's 100 best natural wines.
Gravner · Friuli Collio · Italy · Orange · Ribolla Gialla
After Gravner's 1997 trip to Georgia he began vinifying in qvevri buried in the cellar floor. Ribolla Gialla gets months of skin contact without temperature control and is then aged in large casks for several years before release. The result is amber, tannic and almost tea-like in its aromatics.
Pheasant's Tears · Kakheti, Georgien · Georgia · Orange · Rkatsiteli
Rkatsiteli is Georgia's most planted white grape, and here it is vinified exactly as it has been for eight thousand years: whole clusters with skins and stems in qvevri buried in the ground, without additives. The wine smells of dried apricot, walnut and black tea.
Radikon · Friuli Collio · Italy · Orange · Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio
Oslavje is a blend of Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio with long skin contact in large Slavonian casks, without added sulphur and without filtration. The wine is deeply amber with tannins like a red wine.
Gravner · Friuli Collio · Italy · Orange · Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Riesling
Gravner's second amphora wine, a blend of Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio and Riesling Italico. Deeper and more oxidative than the Ribolla, with a phenolic structure that demands food.
Ramaz Nikoladze · Nakhshirgele, Imereti, Georgien · Georgia · Orange · Tsitska, Tsolikouri
Two indigenous Georgian grapes in qvevri with shorter skin contact than the Kakheti tradition. Lighter and more floral than eastern Georgian orange wines — Imereti's own style.
Radikon · Friuli Collio · Italy · Orange · Tocai Friulano
The name is Tokaj spelled backwards — a protest against the EU ban on calling the grape Tocai Friulano. The wine is one of the purest interpretations of Friulano with long skin contact.
Radikon · Friuli Collio · Italy · Orange · Ribolla Gialla
Radikon's pure Ribolla Gialla, with long skin contact in Slavonian oak. Together with Gravner's version, the wine that defined Oslavje as the capital of orange wine.
La Stoppa · Emilia-Romagna · Italy · Orange · Malvasia, Ortrugo
Movia · Brda, Slovenien · Slovenia · Orange · Rebula
Pierre Frick · Pfaffenheim, Alsace · France · Orange · Pinot Gris
Dario Prinčič · Oslavia, Friuli Collio · Italy · Orange · Friulano (Jakot)