By the way, here's something cool I thought I should mention. This is very the first article I've read —not counting specialized wine publications or articles — that mentions orange wine.
There are lots of definitions for orange wine, mostly centering around their amber color, but what's really cool about orange wine is that it's a return to some of the oldest wine-making techniques in the world.
Orange wine began a popular renaissance about the same time new lesbian bars began popping up again. But orange wine has been around for at least 5,000 years, continually produced in Georgia (not the American state) using traditional techniques — light colored grapes crushed with their skins in clay vessels, buried underground to ferment and age at precisely controlled temperatures. The vessels look quite a bit like large Greek amphoras from the Classical era, but their use dates back to long before Greek was even a language, even since long before Minoan society arose.
Wine enthusiasts and producers outside of Georgia have been taking note for several years — using the same or very similar techniques to produce distinctively delicious orange wines all over the globe.
They're not white, they're not red, and while they taste like wine, they don't taste quite like wine you've ever had before. (They bear no flavor-profile resemblance to rosé, despite sharing the fact of being neither white nor red.)
Many orange wines are considered "natural," in that they contain few or no preservatives, and they might have been produced from grapes grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
Ironically, Georgian grapes for orange wine are not particularly likely to be grown like that. Georgian wine producers for the most part concentrate on good grape yields and reliable wine for local markets that don't highly value "organic" or "natural" designations.
Still, orange wine, Georgian or otherwise, seems to thrive under natural production better than other wine-making processes.
You can find "natural" wine in most well stocked wine shops today, and orange wine is featuring more and more.
For any wine lover who hasn't tried it yet, it's delicious in my opinion, and each sip invites a thoughtful peek back into quite ancient human culture.
