Curious to hear what you guys think of this as I feel skin contact wines often get lumped into the natural wine category by default, even if they can be made in as traditional a style as you’d like.
And what are some standout orange wines in your opinion?
While many orange wines are natural wines, I’ve had also tons of conventionally made orange wines, so no. Not all orange wines are natural.
Yeah they often gets generalised as one.
Good and safe to me are Gravner, Damijan and Vodopivec. Fun but doubtful quality are Iago, Radikon and Princic to name a few.
Hardy Wallace has made some really good Orange Wines.
There was a squabble about this during the summer when this article about Gulp Hablo came out and some prominent natural wine folks like Alice Feiring fired back, highlighting that the wine is marketed as a natural wine but is about as industrial as it gets. Lots of the big names are certainly low intervention/organic/etc., but there are plenty of others who are bottling plonk.
Interesting! I had never read this before but have been curious about this ubiquitous bottle, which I’ve seen but not had.
Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think the article suggests it’s actually industrial plonk.
From the article:
“Ultimately, Gulp Hablo aimed to strike the right balance on every front: fun and approachable, but backed by serious winemaking; true to the natural wine ethos, but with clean, straightforward (and shelf-stable) flavors; and made with biodynamically farmed, high-quality grapes, but still relatively affordable.”
Maybe it is, I really don’t know.
see below
Gulp hablo orange tastes like if you squeezed an orange and a lemon into a bottle of nail polish remover and then watered that down like 20:1
A must try? Like when a restaurant critic pans a dish and people order it to see how bad it is.
Yes, the article reinforced the idea that it is a natural wine. Alice Feiring and a sea of others pushed back on this because the wines are machine harvested, bottled with very high levels of sulfur, etc. The article @phil.lukeman added here is a great synopsis.
Ah. Now I see. Missed this discourse. TYVM.
Honestly, no. It’s somehow gross tasting and flavorless simultaneously. There are way more natty wines out there that are just gross tasting
Nevertheless, these do not prevent a wine from being an orange wine.
A natural wine, instead, yes. For that I can imagine Alice railing against the wine.
Two of my favourite wine concepts: “orange” and “natural” 
Can someone explain to me why machine harvesting makes a wine not a “natural wine”? Natural winemakers still use machines to plant and tend vineyards, move barrels and tanks around, build winemaking facilities, and bottle their wines. Why does machine harvesting break the definition? None of this is to say whether machine harvesting is good or bad for wine quality (you could argue about any winemaking choice, “natural” or no, from that perspective), I’m mainly confused about why it disqualifies wines from the definition.
I’m not sure who claims it does. But, since there’s no clear definition of “natural wine,” I don’t think there’s a clear answer.
I think Alice Feiring makes that claim.
Ah. Of course she would.
I think the puzzlement in the original question probably stems from the fact that both natural and orange wines seem to appeal to a younger demographic.
Orgo Rkatsiteli
Scholium Prince in His Caves
I used to say Radikon, but I’ve had some mousy bottles, so those are completely out for me.
