What the heck is an Orange Wine? 🍊🍊🍊

The wines on offer in our Cardiff Wine Passport include our carefully handpicked selection of delicious whites and juicy reds, but a few of our venues are also offering to stamp your passport in return for a glass of orange wine.

But what exactly is an orange wine?

In a nutshell, orange wine is made by leaving the grape skins and seeds in contact with the juice when the wine is being made creating a deep orange-hued finished product. It makes for a deliciously different drop, and the perfect addition to our 2024 wine passport.

For a more detailed explanation, we spoke to Fitz from Cardiff Wine Passport venue Nighthawks to find out more…

“Well first things first, orange wine is not made with oranges! It’s still made with grapes, but it’s called orange wine because it has a slightly different colour and maybe even texture, to the wines you may have had before.

Orange wine essentially is white wine, but when it’s being made, the wine makers crush the grapes and leave the skin in contact with the juices for a bit longer. This gives it a little bit more texture, a bit more complexity, and maybe some more unusual flavours and aromas than you would expect with a white wine. It often has quite a lot of stone fruit characteristics; perhaps some apricot, maybe some orange.”

“Most people choose an orange wine because they want to try something a little bit extra. It’s a bit funky, a little bit unpredictable - and we picked it for the Cardiff Wine Passport because we want to introduce people to something a little bit different.”
- Fitz from Nighthawks.

To pick up your passport and start sipping on a glass of orange wine, head on over to our store.