Review: Tarongino, Valencia Orange Wine

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with Tarongino in any way; I just like talking about beverages. I am a member of the Amazon Affiliate program and earn on qualifying purchases.

Tarongino is a Spanish brand from Valencia that makes orange wine. When I say “orange wine” here, I am not talking about skin-contact white wine, which is colloquially known as “orange wine” for reasons you can probably infer. I am talking about wine literally made from oranges–Valencia oranges, to be specific. 

I imagine pedants and wine purists everywhere are wailing in undulating alternate cases: “tHaT’s NoT wInE!!!!!!!” Let’s take a moment and let them get it out of their systems.

Moving on. It was very difficult not to have certain expectations based on its fluorescent orange color, namely that it would taste exactly like Fanta. I couldn’t even imagine that it would be wine-adjacent, to be honest. Also, it’s 7% alcohol, which is almost half the amount of real wine.

Anyway. I saw this Tarongino for sale online and was curious, so I decided to order it. I couldn’t find that much information about it, though, which makes me think that it is either a) a regional specialty that is not common outside Valencia, or b) a “regional specialty” that no one actually drinks and is mostly sold in tacky tourist shops.

After uncorking my bottle, I had a whiff and my image of Fanta was dashed. It did, indeed, smell alcoholic and vaguely wine-y, though it had a medicinal after-smell that concerned me.

The initial taste of Tarongino is surprisingly–and not unwelcomingly–sour. It has a pleasant, citrus sweet-tart flavor–at least at first. The aftertaste is wholly sweet, at that vague medicinal scent shows up at the finish. After a few sips, it feels entirely too sweet to continue drinking on its own.

The Verdict

Tarongino is much improved as a mixer. For a lightly alcoholic spritz, it can be mixed with just soda water and maybe an orange slice. Alternatively, you could mix it with soda water and sparkling wine like an Aperol spritz.

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