The Best Orange Wines from UK Vineyards

Orange wine, a white wine fermented with its grape skins left in the way red wine is normally made, is arguably the oldest style of wine there is: the method dates back around 8,000 years to Georgia, where wine was first fermented in skin contact with grape juice inside buried clay qvevri, long before anyone thought to separate the two. Fast forward 8,000 years and it's overcome the cliché of being a cloudy and funky East London obsession, despite still being a niche section of the market. A growing number of English vineyards have taken to the style, but it's still rare enough that you need to seek it out if it's something you're particularly interested in. Whether you pride yourself on being that hipster who liked orange wine before it was cool or you're flirting with the idea of trying it for the first time, these are the orange wines and the vineyards behind them that should be on your radar. Three of the wines below, from two vineyards, I've tasted myself; the rest earned their place through medals, awards and reviews.

Why English orange wine tastes the way it does

The two wines I've tasted myself for this piece both happen to be made from Bacchus, the grape known for elderflower and grassy, hedgerow notes, so that's the grape I can speak to directly. Most other English orange wine, including several of the wines below, uses different grapes entirely, and the effect of skin contact varies with each one.

My own assumption going in was that skin contact softens Bacchus's grassiness. It doesn't, not at a chemical level anyway, and the wine science is worth knowing before you buy. The grassy character in Bacchus comes mostly from compounds called methoxypyrazines, and they're stubborn: they resist oxidation, and most of their extraction happens in the first 24 hours of skin contact rather than fading out over a longer maceration. So skin contact isn't stripping the grassiness away at a chemical level. What it does instead is add tannin and a layer of secondary flavour on top of it - dried citrus peel, honeyed stone fruit, spice, sometimes a nutty or savoury edge. The grassy note is often still there if you go looking for it. It just isn't the only thing happening any more, which is why these wines can taste rounder and more food-friendly than a straightforward steel-fermented Bacchus, even though the grape itself hasn't changed underneath it.

Competition judges seem to agree. When Wharie's Bacchus Orange 2023 won gold at the 2025 Independent English Wine Awards, the judges' notes described "the variety's signature grassy, floral character" sitting alongside citrus peel, tropical fruit and tannin. The grassiness hadn't gone anywhere. It just had company.

The best orange wines from UK vineyards

The Wharie Experience

Location: Sway, New Forest, Hampshire

I tried this at the vineyard, where owner Guillaume Lagger works with wild yeast and disease-resistant PIWI varieties. Wharie's own vines had their first harvest in 2025, so earlier vintages, including both Bacchus Oranges here, were made from bought-in fruit while those vines matured. The Bacchus Orange itself came from the historic vines at Beaulieu through the 2022 vintage, before that source was replaced in 2023. Of the two, I found the 2022 had more depth and a more savoury edge, though it's the 2023 that went on to win gold at the 2025 Independent English Wine Awards. Either way, this is the orange Bacchus I'd point people towards first.

Wine: Bacchus Orange 2022 (£35) or 2023 (£25)
Buy: 2022 or 2023, both from the vineyard's own shop

Polgoon Vineyard

Location: Penzance, Cornwall

Polgoon's Bacchus orange, from their single Cornish estate, is the other one I've had. It leans more toward orange zest and honeyed stone fruit than Wharie's version, with the grassiness pushed further into the background.

Wine: Orange Wine, £22.95
Buy: polgoon.com

Tillingham

Location: Peasmarsh, near Rye, East Sussex

Tillingham was one of the first English producers to take orange wine seriously, fermenting Ortega on its skins in qvevri, the same clay vessels used in Georgia thousands of years ago. Expect candied ginger and stone fruit with well-integrated tannin. Ortega doesn't carry the grassy character Bacchus does, so this is a different starting point from most of this list, not just a different producer. Tillingham sells plenty of its own wine through its own site, but not this specific bottling - the Orange Ortega 2023 only turns up through independent stockists, and it's currently sold out at the ones we've checked, so treat it as one to watch for rather than buy today.

Wine: Orange Ortega 2023, around £35 RRP
Buy: not through Tillingham's own shop; via independent wine retailers when in stock

Huxbear Vineyard

Location: Teign Valley, near Chudleigh, Devon

Huxbear runs off-grid on solar power, and its Orange Bear changes grape from vintage to vintage - the 2023 is Siegerrebe and Schönburger left on skins for five weeks, while the 2021 was 100% Chardonnay. It's a wild-ferment wine with a full, tannic palate, worth trying precisely because it isn't chasing the same Bacchus-orange profile as most of this list.

Wine: Orange Bear 2023, £18
Buy: huxbear.co.uk

Denbies Wine Estate

Location: Dorking, Surrey

Denbies is one of England's largest and best-known vineyards, which makes its Orange Solaris a sensible place to start if you want to try the style without hunting down a small-batch producer first. Made from 100% Solaris left on skins, it won Innovation of the Year in the 2022 Specialist English Wine Report. The Orange Solaris 2023 is £19.50, and the Wild Orange Solaris 2025, wild-fermented and left on its skins until July 2026, is £35.

Wine: Orange Solaris 2023, £19.50, or Wild Orange Solaris 2025, £35
Buy: 2023 or 2025, from denbies.co.uk

Trevibban Mill

Location: Padstow, Cornwall

Trevibban Mill blends Solaris and Reichensteiner for Orion, skin-fermented for three weeks and matured in French oak. Expect mandarin and orange pith on the nose with nectarine and blossom honey underneath, and tannin that's delicate rather than gripping. The 2018 vintage won gold at the WineGB Awards 2019, with judge Nik Darlington calling it the most exciting wine of that year's harvest; the blend has changed since, but that track record is what put it on this list.

Wine: Orion, £34.95
Buy: trevibbanmill.com

Black Mountain Vineyard

Location: Herefordshire, on the Welsh border

Black Mountain has been growing its own organic vines in the Herefordshire hills since 2009, with its first harvest in 2013, and most of its range comes from that estate fruit. The Shouting at Weather wines are the exception: a side-project made from bought-in grapes from a conventional vineyard in nearby Stoke Edith, hand-picked Seyval Blanc for the Col Fondo and Phoenix for the 2022 Orange. It is in stock direct from the estate.

Wine: Shouting at Weather Orange '24, £21
Buy: blackmountainwine.co.uk

Also worth knowing about

• Bolney Wine Estate (West Sussex) makes two small-batch orange releases a year, Winemaker's Edition Orange Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, £30 each.
• Charles Palmer Vineyards (East Sussex) has an Orange Wine at £20, currently in stock through their shop. I bought a bottle as a gift for a friend rather than tasted it myself.
• Woodfine Wine (Buckinghamshire) runs two orange wines side by side, Lost Vagus Orange (£29) and Goose in the Woods Orange (£18), both from its natural winemaking range.
• Nine Oaks Vineyard (Kent) makes Rosorange, from £25 through its online shop.

Trying these for yourself

Most of these are small runs sold directly through the vineyard's own shop rather than supermarkets, so availability shifts with each vintage and a few are sold out as this goes live. If skin-contact, low-intervention winemaking interests you beyond just orange wine, Huxbear, Tillingham and Black Mountain also turn up in our guide to natural and low-intervention wine in the UK.