Natural Wine 101

The rise of minimal-intervention wines has made waves in the wine world. And the best way to understand it, writes Max Allen, is to taste it for yourself.

- Max Allen

The hottest wine trend of the decade? That’s easy: all things natural. Grapes grown with a minimum of sprays, preferably organic or biodynamic; nothing added in the cellar except perhaps a small amount of sulphur dioxide preservative at bottling. Just wine.

It’s also been the most controversial trend of the past 10 years. Critics in the industry decry the lack of an official definition of natural. They grumble about the murky, rustic and even feral flavours found in some natural bottles, and they accuse some winemakers of jumping on the natural bandwagon. But the trend has been overwhelmingly positive as far as wine drinkers are concerned (so what if the chardonnay’s a bit cloudy and smells a bit like cider? It’s still delicious), and the movement shows little sign of slowing down.

If you want to brush up on your natural-wine smarts, here’s my pick of a dozen of the best. All were made with as few additions as possible: spontaneous wild-yeast fermentation, no acid or enzymes or tannins added, no fining (clarification) or filtration, and very little (or no) sulphur-dioxide preservative at bottling. Almost all were produced from grapes farmed using biological (low-chemical input), organic or biodynamic methods. For readers particularly interested in this aspect of natural wine – whether the grapes are free of synthetic sprays – I’ve indicated which are from certified organic or biodynamic vineyards.