Orange wine: not all orange wines are natural. And vice versa.

There are also historical reasons for the confusion. Over the last twenty years, the resurgence of orange wine has been driven mainly by producers associated with the natural wine movement, particularly in Friuli, Slovenia and Georgia. Many consumers have seen both terms appear at the same time and have come to regard one as simply a translation of the other.

As is often the case with wine, a small detail has come to define its identity. It’s a bit like thinking that a long beard is enough to make you a philosopher, or that a sulphite-free bottle is enough to make you feel part of the resistance.

It must be said that I am not one of those who worship orange wine. Mainly because I have never understood how maceration on the skins can inspire the same devotion that some reserve for Marian apparitions. I have drunk some splendid examples and others that were decidedly difficult to drink. Just as is the case with any type of wine.

Longer macerations – when taken to extremes – tend to make wines more uniform. One often finds that, in the glass, the characteristics of the grape variety or the terroir are the first to stand out. This is the fate of many techniques when they cease to be a tool and become a religion.

Today, however, the orange wine phenomenon is much more widespread. They have found their way onto the wine lists of many restaurants as a category in their own right, as well as in wine bars and in the ranges of producers who have little or nothing to do with the natural wine movement.

After all, the maceration of white grapes is not some invention from a metropolitan wine bar with a jazz playlist playing in the background and waiters describing the wine as if it were a political manifesto. It is one of the oldest techniques in the history of wine. In Georgia, where buried qvevri (terracotta amphorae) are traditionally used, it has existed for thousands of years.

The real question, then, is not whether an orange wine is natural. It is whether it is good. The colour tells us something, but far less than we tend to believe.

Perhaps the time has come to clear up this misunderstanding about orange wines. Not all natural wines are orange, and not all orange wines are natural.

Some orange wines are extraordinary: complex, deep, food-friendly, capable of expressing a terroir in their own unique way. Others simply seem to have spent too long on the skins (and not enough time on self-criticism). Technique does not guarantee the result. Just as natural production does not guarantee quality.

The only certainty is that they remain the most talked-about wines at the table. Often by people who haven’t even smelled them yet. And, curiously enough, they are also among the most highly praised by those who wouldn’t drink more than half a glass of them.

Perhaps because orange wines have become more than just a category of wine: a topic of discussion, a cause, a sign of belonging.

Wine, when all is said and done, remains a rather simple matter: first you taste it, then you judge it. Not the other way round, as is often the case on social media, for example.