The Natural Wine Debate

Walk into a hip wine bar and you'll almost certainly find natural wines on the list. They're often in unusual bottles with hand-drawn labels, described in poetic terms — "alive", "funky", "wild", "breathing". To enthusiasts, they represent a return to authentic winemaking. To sceptics, they're expensive and unreliable. The truth, as usual, sits somewhere in the middle.

What Is Natural Wine?

There's no official legal definition of "natural wine," which is part of why the conversation around it can be confusing. In general, natural wine refers to wine made with minimal intervention, both in the vineyard and the cellar. The broadly shared principles include:

  • Organic or biodynamic farming: No synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilisers in the vineyard.
  • Hand harvesting: Grapes are picked by hand rather than machine.
  • Spontaneous fermentation: Using only the wild yeasts naturally present on grape skins rather than adding commercial yeast strains.
  • No or minimal added sulphites: Sulphur dioxide is the most common preservative in conventional winemaking. Natural wines use little to none.
  • No fining or filtration: Or very light filtration, leaving the wine cloudy and with more sediment.
  • No additives: Conventional winemaking permits dozens of additives (acidifiers, tannins, enzymes, colourants). Natural wine avoids these.

How Natural Wine Differs From Organic Wine

This is a common point of confusion. Organic wine certification focuses on vineyard practices — it certifies that no synthetic chemicals were used growing the grapes. But an organic-certified wine can still use commercial yeasts, heavy filtration, and a range of cellar additives. Natural wine goes further by applying a "minimal intervention" philosophy to the entire process, though without a formal certification body to enforce it.

What Does Natural Wine Taste Like?

This is where opinions diverge most sharply. Because natural wines are made without the safety net of commercial yeasts and added sulphites, they can express a much wider range of flavours — including some that take getting used to.

  • Funky and earthy: Wild fermentation can produce notes that conventional wine drinkers find unusual — barnyard, leather, mushroom, or brett (a specific yeasty character).
  • Cloudy and hazy: Without filtration, most natural wines are visually cloudy. This is normal and not a flaw.
  • Slightly fizzy: Many natural wines have a light effervescence from residual fermentation activity.
  • More variable: Two bottles of the same natural wine can taste noticeably different. This is a feature to some, a flaw to others.

Orange Wine: A Natural Wine Adjacent Style

Orange wine — made by fermenting white grapes with their skins on, like a red wine — is often associated with the natural wine movement, though not exclusively so. The skin contact gives these wines a deep amber or orange colour, grippy tannins, and complex oxidative notes. They pair excellently with robust flavourful food and represent one of the most interesting corners of the wine world right now.

Is Natural Wine Right for You?

Consider trying natural wine if:

  • You're curious about wine beyond standard varietal expressions.
  • You're interested in small-scale, sustainable farming practices.
  • You enjoy adventurous flavour profiles and don't mind unpredictability.
  • You experience headaches from conventional wines (lower sulphites may help, though individual responses vary).

You might want to stick with conventional wine if you strongly prefer consistency, predictability, and the clean fruit-forward profiles of commercially produced wines. Both are valid positions.

Where to Start

Ask at a specialist wine shop rather than a supermarket — staff who know natural wine can guide you to approachable entry points. Look for wines from the Loire Valley, Jura, Georgia, or Slovenia as starting regions. Gamay, Chenin Blanc, and Pinot Gris are grape varieties that tend to translate well in the natural style.