Walk into any natural wine bar in New Zealand (yes, there are now more than a few to choose from) and you would not be mistaken for thinking that orange wine was new. The extent of orange wines made in New Zealand is far wider than before, in quality and quantity, but as for orange wine itself it is far from being a new fad.

Skin-contact wine is the oldest recorded winemaking process in the world, dating back some 8,000 years. But then again, old is new right? Orange wine’s origins sit in Georgia where fragments decorated with grape patterns and containing chemical traces of wine, that were found near Tbilisi, date back 8,000 years. It’s here that wine is made by skin-contact in large, egg-shaped terracotta pots called qvevri (enter the use of eggs in winemaking – we’ll cover that later in the year). The qvevri are buried and left for many days to six months to ferment, this process referred to by the Georgians as amber wine. We can thank the English for the change from amber to orange - this occurred around the early 2000s.

Not all the orange wines featured here are buried in the ground and made as above, though two are. The majority of these are white wines made as you would red wine. Normally with white wine, the juice is immediately pressed from the grapes and the skins discarded. They can, though, be made in exactly the same way as red wines, keeping the juice in contact with the skins. This is how orange wines are made. The fermentation and extended maceration on the skins creates a unique character.

Orange wines acquire a deep hue and have a phenolic grip to them, with additional tannins derived from the skin contact. They often exhibit a dry, austere nature, and tend to partner very well with food.

As for why the recent surge in interest in these wines, they are very naturally made and as we consider what we eat, where it comes from and how good it is for us, there’s a growing place for these wines. Furthermore, there’s an umami nature to these wines, something that we find pleasing and matches well with current trends in food.

If all this leaves you wondering what is orange, what is natural and where does organic fit in – here’s some definitions of sorts:

Organic – Organic grape cultivation eschews the use of synthetic fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers and other artificial processes. The wines themselves are regulated through legislation that can vary from country to country. One of these certification challenges is derived from the USA, where wine and food are conflated under organic regulations. There, in order to protect various food products, the term 'organic wine' can't be applied because of the sulphur present, resulting in the designation 'made from organic grapes'. We encounter that in New Zealand when the producer labels both their domestic and exported product with the one label.

Biodynamic – Biodynamic winemaking and viticulture draws its philosophy from the premise of Austrian philosopher, Rudolph Steiner, that the earth (and thus the vineyard itself) is a living organism. In order to keep everything in balance, the rationale is that vinicultural practices need to be timed to coincide with the rhythms of the earth, a philosophy embracing the whole ecosystem, that requires environment, plants, animals and people to be in complete harmony. As with organics, there is a certification system, but it's a global standard, known as Demeter and named for the Greek goddess of grain and fertility.

Natural – Natural wines are more difficult to define, and are not certificated in the way biodynamic wines, for example, are. They are farmed organically or biodynamically, hand-harvested and 'transformed' without the addition or removal of anything in the cellar. No additives or processing aids are used, and intervention in the naturally occurring fermentation process is kept to a minimum. Neither fining nor filtration are employed. The result is a wine full of naturally occurring microbiology. Essentially, it's about using what one was given, with the wine evolving naturally to be whatever it will be.

Orange – Normally with white wine, the juice is immediately pressed from the grapes and the skins discarded. They can, though, be made in exactly the same way as red wines, keeping the juice in contact with the skins. This is how orange wines are made. Their origin lies in the classic wines of Georgia, and in Italy's Friuli region, where fermentation and extended maceration on the skins creates a unique character. Orange wines acquire a deep hue and have a phenolic grip to them, with additional tannins derived from the skin contact. They often exhibit a dry, austere nature, and tend to partner very well with food.

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