Meanings
plural orange wines
- countableidiomaticuncountableA type of wine made from white wine grapes whose skins are not removed.
Another summer is beginning in Marseille. Heat, rocks, panisse. Packs of Vogue cigarettes and bottles of orange wine, all emptied.
2025 June 14, Robin Van Liebergen, “How not to summer in Marseille”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 191 more example
Orange wines are unlike a white and unlike a red, although they are probably more like a red than a white. They're tannic and sometimes a little bitter depending on how long the skins have contact with the juice.
2015, Lettie Teague, Wine in Words: Some Notes for Better Drinking, Rizzoli Publications, →ISBNSynonyms: amber wine
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA type of wine made from white wine grapes whose skins are not removed.
Origin
The idiomatic sense referring to a type of grape wine is from the color; this class of wines has been made for centuries (in many countries), but this particular English-language term for them was coined as a marketing term in the early 21st century (more in Wikipedia at orange wine § Terminology). The literal sense referring to a type of citrus wine is attested since the 19th century.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Dutch oranje wijn
- oranje wijnwine from grapes with skins not removed
French vin orange
- vin orangewine from grapes with skins not removed
Cite this entry
orange wine. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orange%20wine
“orange wine.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orange%20wine. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “orange wine,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orange%20wine.
Source: orange wine on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.