What is natural wine, and what is orange wine?
One describes a philosophy of production; the other describes a winemaking technique. They overlap frequently and are not the same thing.
Natural wine. Broadly, wine made with minimal intervention in the vineyard and the cellar. Typically that means organically or biodynamically farmed grapes, hand harvesting, fermentation with wild yeasts rather than cultured ones, no additives or adjustments, no fining or filtering, and little or no added sulphur dioxide.
The crucial point: it is not a legally defined or protected term in most jurisdictions. There is no certification behind the word itself, which means it means whatever the producer intends. Some voluntary associations set standards; many producers use the label loosely. This is the main criticism, alongside the argument that minimal intervention increases the risk of faults.
Sulphur dioxide is the central argument. It has been used for centuries as an antioxidant and antimicrobial, and is what makes wine stable and consistent. Without it, wines are more variable, more fragile, more sensitive to transport and storage, and more prone to refermentation and volatile acidity. Advocates regard the variability as character; critics regard some of it as faults being reframed.
Orange wine (skin-contact white). A technique, not a philosophy. White grapes are fermented in contact with their skins — the way red wine is normally made — rather than being pressed first.
What that produces: colour ranging from gold to deep amber; tannin, which white wine normally lacks entirely; and flavours described as nutty, dried fruit, tea-like and savoury. The texture is the most distinctive part — it has grip, so it behaves at the table more like a light red than a white.
It is very old, not new. The method is traditional in Georgia, where wines are fermented in buried clay qvevri, and there is a long history in north-east Italy and Slovenia.
Orange wine can be made conventionally, with added sulphur and cultured yeast, and plenty is. Pét-nat — sparkling wine bottled before fermentation finishes — is a third term frequently grouped with these.