stalking the "orange" wine

Does it even seem appropriate to call it orange wine anymore? With so much variance in method, region, and time of extended skin-contact, I am having a harder time lumping all of these very disparate wines together into one category.

Maybe it has something to do with the man who visited the restaurant I was working in last month almost every night for a week. He was from Fruili, IT and dumbfounded that I knew of so many producers from his tiny geographic area, but begged me to NOT call it orange wine, just white wine (and then proceeded to visit and beg the same thing for many nights in a row). He was strange and demanding, and horrendously appreciative all at the same time. His condescension made me angry, but his persistence about his point was compelling.

This is one of the serious debates my partner at my new restaurant and I have been hashing over. Should we single out wines as "orange", in a separate category, or call them macerated, or put them at the bottom of the white regions?

I have learned more about orange wines (and most New Yorkers have too), from the passion of a certain caustic-witted, lanky, talented sommelier named Levi Dalton, who hosted many gorgeous "all-orange" wine dinners at Alto restaurant in the past few years. I don't think I would even be wondering about their presentation on a list, or their changing roles for diners if he hadn't done so much to educate me and other brave wine lovers lunging for that extreme edge of palate. To think that "orange" has almost become a Brooklyn household term is astounding, exhilarating, and strange.

Is "orange" just is an applied American label, problematic because it prioritizes production technique over specific regionality? There are so many various characteristics within this group, so many different grapes and aging methods. (What about the Jura, or my all-time love sherry for that matter)? Are categories and terminology really that important?

Or should it just be the sheer tactile experience-- the multi-facetted sensations that set off chain reactions in your body like falling dominoes, telling every cell that THIS wine is good. Last night, my friend and I visited Masten Lake restaurant, where I used to work, and Marisa Marthaller poured us a glass of THIS:

Cascina degli Ulivi, Monferrato 'Montemarino' 2001 Piemonte, IT (Stefano Bellotti, Louis/Dressner)

Caramal through the middle, sea salt, bitter orange, dark orange, HEADY, all Cortese, aged in oak for 11 months on lees, gorgeous.