Winemaking
Extended skin contact
Fermenting white grapes on their skins for weeks or months, producing orange wine.
Overview
Treating white grapes like red ones. The juice ferments and macerates with skins, seeds and sometimes stems for anything from days to six months.
This extracts tannin and phenolic compounds that white winemaking normally avoids, giving the wine grip, colour and a savoury, tea-like character.
It is the oldest way of making white wine, and the modern category is a deliberate revival rather than an invention.
Sources
Sources consulted
More in winemaking
Winemaking
Fermentation
Yeast converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide — the step that makes wine wine.
Winemaking
How red wine is made
Fermenting grape juice in contact with the skins, which is where colour and tannin come from.
Winemaking
How white wine is made
Pressing the juice off the skins before fermentation, then fermenting the clear juice.