What is natural wine? What does natural wine mean?
Natural wine can be a bit of a loaded word these days, and, because it has no exact definition, it can be a slightly tricky concept to understand. At its core, though, natural wine is a wine that is fermented naturally via the ambient yeast in the air and environment, without any added commercial yeast. While natural fermentation is what’s at the heart of natural wine, there’s a whole lot more that’s important to understand and recognize to have a fuller grasp of what natural wine means and why it’s better.
To contextualize natural wine’s significance, it’s useful to explore first what the opposite is. Most wines that we have available to us in the U.S. are the opposite of natural wines — they are heavily manipulated with tons and tons of additives in them to make them “taste better” or “last longer” or “cost less.” Wines with oak chips and glycerine; wines with freeze-dried tannins and refined sugars; wines with artificial coloring and synthetic stabilizers… wines that, quite frankly, suck. None of these additives are necessary to make wine, but they are all necessary to make you feel like sh*t after or while drinking it.
Natural wines are the opposite. They are wines with minimal to no additives, and they are often good for you* (in moderation, of course). Natural wines are made by taking good quality grapes, putting them in a vessel, and that’s it. The philosophy is to let nature take care of the rest. Now, in order to be able to follow such a simple winemaking process requires painstaking efforts in the vineyards and in the fields for the other ~48 weeks per year. The crux of natural winemaking is a natural fermentation, but the philosophy as a whole involves minimal intervention throughout the lifecycle of the wine, i.e. throughout the lifecycle of the fruit. The grapes and vines for natural wines aren’t exposed to synthetic sprays, chemical antibiotics, or unnatural fertilizers — and that’s the part that can be a bit trickier to understand and trickier to oversee.
It’s a good thing that natural wine is a growing movement. The challenge is bandwagoners who push the boundaries of what “natural” really means and rather want to use the word “natural” because it makes their wine sell — that’s who we need to watch out for.
*It’s important for us to note here that we are not health professionals and recommend you consult your healthcare practitioner for any health advice of any kind, especially as it relates to alcohol or wine consumption.