Every October, as the vines around us push out their first green shoots, we pause to celebrate a style of wine that's older than the words we use to describe it: orange wine.

Despite the name, there's no orange fruit involved. The colour comes from something far more ancient — leaving the skins of white grapes in contact with their juice, the same way winemakers have made red wine for millennia. It's less a modern trend than a rediscovery of the original method, before anyone thought to strip the skins away in pursuit of a paler glass.

A style thousands of years in the making

The technique traces back over 8,000 years to Georgia, in the Caucasus, where winemakers buried clay vessels called qvevri underground and let white grapes ferment on their skins for months at a time. It was simply how wine was made, there was no "orange" category, because there was no other kind. That skin contact gave the wine its deep amber hue, its grip of tannin, and a texture more commonly associated with reds.

For centuries the style all but disappeared outside pockets of Eastern Europe, overtaken by the clean, skin-free whites that came to define modern winemaking. It took a handful of producers in Slovenia and Italy's Friuli region, reviving the old qvevri methods in the late 20th century, to bring it back into the conversation, and the name "orange wine" itself is a relatively recent invention, coined in the UK wine trade only in the 2000s to give the resurrected style a name of its own.

Why it's worth exploring

Orange wine sits in its own space — not quite white, not quite red. Skin contact brings texture, tannin, and layers of dried fruit, honey, and spice that white winemaking alone rarely produces. It's a style that rewards curiosity, and one we think deserves a place at the table alongside more familiar pours.

Explore it with us

This Orange Wine Day, our team has curated a range of styles to help your senses explore one of the oldest wine styles in existence. Whether you're new to the category or already a convert, we'd love to pour you a glass and talk through what makes it tick.