Austrian Wine files them, on paper, under one tidy heading: alternative wines. Orange, natural and raw, all swept into a single category, as if a country's most forward-looking bottles were a footnote to the serious business of Grüner Veltliner and Blaufränkisch. Stand in a room full of them, as I did at the silent Austrian trade tasting at the Amstel Boathouse in Amsterdam on 27 October 2025, and the word alternative starts to feel badly out of date.
This is the deep dive into the part of that afternoon that surprised me most. I covered the full sweep of the tasting, the reds shedding their oak, textural Steiermark Sauvignon, Schilcher rosé, in my main piece on where Austria is heading right now. Here I want to stay with the orange and natural wines: what they actually are, why the terminology confuses people, who is making the ones worth your attention, and how to put them on a list without hiding them at the bottom in a nervous little box marked natural.
What Austria actually means by 'alternative wines'
Austrian Wine, the country's marketing board, uses alternative wines as a formal umbrella for three overlapping styles: orange (white grapes fermented on their skins), natural (made with minimal intervention) and raw or so-called cloudy wines that skip fining and filtration. It is a useful shorthand for a catalogue, and I understand why it exists. The problem is what the word does in a buyer's head. Alternative implies a deviation from the norm, a special-interest choice for the adventurous few. On the tasting bench, these wines did not read as deviations. They read as some of the most complete, food-ready wines in the room.
That gap between the filing system and the glass is the whole story. The category has matured faster than the language we used to sell it. So, before anyone can list these wines with confidence, it helps to be precise about what each term really means, because most of the hesitation in the trade comes from vagueness, not from the wines.
Orange wine, explained without the mystique
Orange wine is white wine made like a red. Instead of pressing the juice off the skins straightaway, the winemaker leaves the white grapes macerating on their skins, seeds and sometimes stems for anything from a few days to several months. That contact pulls colour, tannin and grip out of the skins, which is why the wine ends up amber rather than pale gold, and why it feels structured and savoury rather than soft and fruity.
The name is newer than the method. The term orange wine was coined in 2004 by the British importer David A. Harvey, who needed a simple way to describe skin-contact whites to the trade. The technique itself is ancient: it traces back thousands of years to Georgia, where white grapes were fermented on their skins in buried clay qvevri long before anyone thought to call the result orange. Simon J. Woolf, who curated the Amsterdam line-up, wrote the definitive modern account of that revival in his book Amber Revolution, which is partly why the orange flights at this tasting felt so assured rather than gimmicky.
95/100The Austrian examples showed the range the style can cover. At one end, citrus-driven and lifted, with gentle tannins and a tea-like grip. At the other, herbal and stone-fruited, with a weight and texture that pulled them firmly onto the plate. None of them tasted like a science experiment. They tasted like wines built for the table, which is exactly where they belong on a list.
Natural wine has a working definition now, and Austria fits it
Natural wine spent years as an argument rather than a category, precisely because no one could agree on what it meant. That changed in 2017, when Decanter published a working definition: wine made from organically or biodynamically grown grapes, fermented with native yeasts, with nothing added and nothing removed beyond, at most, a small dose of sulphur at bottling. It is not a legal certification, but it gave the trade a shared reference point, and that alone makes the category far easier to stand behind.
Austria fits that definition comfortably. What struck me in Amsterdam was how clean the natural wines were. Simon had quietly placed one in almost every flight, and I could pick them out almost each time by a slight raw edge and a particular energy, yet they were pure, precise and confident within their class. No mousy taint, no volatile chaos, no faults hiding behind an ideology. These were natural wines that had nothing to prove and everything to offer, which is the strongest possible argument for taking the category seriously.
Mineral, lightly citrus and floral · juicy yet dry, with a structured, chewy bite, medium body and green apples on the finish.
The producers making the case
Proof I did my homework
Hareter Cuvée 'Root' 2024
93/100
Domäne Wachau Roter Traminer 2024
93/100
Jaunegg Muskateller 'Jardin d'herbes' 2023
92/100
Renner Winburg PIWI Cuvée
90/100
Schabl Rebell Naturell
93/100
Heinrich Graue Freyheit
92/100
Pittnauer Mash Pitt
90/100
Zillinger Revolution
91/100Proof I did my homework: Hareter Cuvée 'Root' 2024 (93/100) · Domäne Wachau Roter Traminer 2024 (93/100) · Jaunegg Muskateller 'Jardin d'herbes' 2023 (92/100) · Renner Winburg PIWI Cuvée (90/100) · Schabl Rebell Naturell (93/100) · Heinrich Graue Freyheit (92/100) · Pittnauer Mash Pitt (90/100) · Zillinger Revolution (91/100).
A category is only as credible as the names behind it, and Austria's bench is deep. Gernot and Heike Heinrich, working biodynamically in Burgenland, poured a skin-contact cuvée called Graue Freyheit that showed how polished this style can be. Gerhard and Brigitte Pittnauer brought Mash Pitt, a wine whose name tells you exactly how little it takes itself too seriously and whose quality tells you how seriously they take the craft. Johannes Zillinger's Revolution, a solera-aged skin-contact white, was among the most complete wines of the day.
Around those anchors sat a supporting cast that would headline most other countries. Martin and Anna Arndorfer showed a Neuburger from a single site, Andreas Gsellmann a Weißburgunder called Másik, Thomas Hareter a cuvée simply named Root. Further down the flights there was a Riesling from Schabl, a Muskateller from Daniel Jaunegg, a Grüner Veltliner from the Pfalz family, a Gewürztraminer from Pasler and an amber PIWI cuvée from Renner. The breadth matters: this is not one or two cult producers propping up a trend. It is a working ecosystem of growers, across regions and grapes, treating skin contact and low intervention as legitimate tools rather than provocations.
The label is doing more work than you think
There is one more thing these wines share, and it is easy to dismiss as surface: the bottles look different. Hand-drawn illustrations, stripped-back typography, colours and shapes that owe more to a design studio than to a heraldic crest. It is tempting to read that as marketing gloss, but it is actually information. The label signals the wine's intent before the cork is out, and it speaks fluently to a younger drinker who has been trained by everything else in their life to trust good design.
91/100For a buyer, that is a gift, not a gimmick. A shelf or a by-the-glass list that includes a few of these bottles reads as curated and current without a single word of explanation. The aesthetics do part of the selling for you. The mistake is to treat the look as a reason to file the wine under novelty. The design is confident on purpose, and the liquid behind it, in the cases worth listing, more than earns that confidence.
How to list and sell alternative Austrian wines
89/100If you take one practical thing from the Amsterdam bench, let it be this: these wines fail on lists not because guests reject them, but because the trade presents them apologetically. A few adjustments fix most of that.
Lead with food, not philosophy. Sell the tannin, the grip and the texture as reasons the wine belongs next to a dish, and the natural or orange framing becomes a bonus rather than a hurdle.
Put them by the glass. These are wines people want to try before they commit to a bottle, and a by-the-glass pour removes the risk while doing the education for you.
Name the producer and the region, not just the style. Gernot Heinrich or Johannes Zillinger carries more weight with a curious guest than the word natural ever will.
Price with confidence. These are gastronomic wines with real structure and serious work behind them and underpricing them signals novelty and undercuts the category.
Let the bottle be seen. On a shelf or a back bar, the design earns attention on its own, so give it the visibility rather than tucking it away in a natural-wine ghetto.
Alternative no more
The most telling detail of the whole afternoon was structural. Simon did not corral the natural and orange wines onto a separate experimental table, like most tastings do. He wove them through the flights, next to the classics, and let them compete on equal terms. They held their own effortlessly. That is the real signal: what Austria still files under alternative wines are already behaving, in the room, like the main offer. The catalogue will catch up eventually. The smart buyers will get there first. If you want the wider context for where this fits in Austria's bigger shift, the main piece walks through the full tasting.
And if you import, list or sell Austrian wine and you want help turning this category into something your buyers and drinkers actually reach for, that is exactly the work I do at Wine with Margot or set you up with the right connections.
Frequently asked questions
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What is the difference between orange wine and natural wine?
Orange wine describes a method: white grapes fermented on their skins so the wine takes on colour, tannin and grip. Natural wine describes an approach: minimal intervention, organic or biodynamic fruit, native yeast, and little or no added sulphur. A wine can be one, both or neither. Many Austrian orange wines are also natural, but the terms are not interchangeable.
Where does the term orange wine come from?
The term was coined in 2004 by British wine importer David A. Harvey, who wanted a clear way to describe skin-contact white wines to the trade. The technique itself is thousands of years old and traces back to Georgia, where white grapes were traditionally fermented on their skins in buried clay vessels called qvevri.
Are Austrian natural and orange wines any good, or just a trend?
At the October 2025 Austrian trade tasting in Amsterdam, the natural and orange wines were clean, precise and food-friendly rather than faulty or gimmicky. Established producers such as Gernot Heinrich, Gerhard Pittnauer and Johannes Zillinger are making them at a high level, which suggests a maturing category rather than a passing fashion.
How should a restaurant or shop sell Austrian orange and natural wine?
Lead with food pairing rather than ideology, offer the wines by the glass so guests can try before committing, name the producer and region instead of just the style, price them as the serious gastronomic wines they are, and let the distinctive label design be visible. Presented with confidence rather than apology, they sell.
What does Austria mean by 'alternative wines'?
Alternative wines is the umbrella term Austrian Wine, the national marketing board, uses for orange, natural and raw or unfiltered wines. It is a cataloguing convenience rather than a judgement of quality, and many in the trade now feel the wines have outgrown the label.
Resources
- Austrian Wine (Österreich Wein Marketing), the 'alternative wines' category (orange, natural, raw): https://www.austrianwine.com/our-wine/wine-styles/8-alternative-wines
- Decanter, working definition of natural wine, published 2017: https://www.decanter.com/learn/what-is-natural-wine-360060
- Simon J. Woolf, Amber Revolution and the history of orange wine, at The Morning Claret: https://www.themorningclaret.com
- Wine with Margot, the full Amsterdam tasting report, Austria Is Done Playing Safe: https://www.winewithmargot.com/wine-journal/austria-is-done-playing-safe
Margot van Lieshout
Wine marketeer, sales expert with over 20 years in the trade, public speaker and international wine judge. Thousands of wines scored from Steiermark to Ningxia, and a trade she knows from the inside out. Wine with Margot is where she helps wine brands tell the stories that sell them.
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