Grape expectations

Natural wine is enjoying a huge growth in popularity of late – find out what it is and where to drink it

- TONY NAYLOR

This stripped-back approach to making and drinking wine is now a hugely influential scene, one infiltrating restaurant wine lists everywhere and helping to modernise wine culture. But what exactly is natural wine, where can you try it and why do some drinkers absolutely hate it?

olive's natural wine primer

What is natural wine?

Simply, a rejection of modern wine production methods. Using clever science, cultured yeasts, stabilising sulphites and numerous additives, mainstream producers aim to create shelf-stable wines that, critics argue, sacrifice flavour for consistency. In opposition to this, in the 1970s a few maverick French farmers and winemakers started using ancient techniques to produce low-intervention wines (fermented using naturally occurring yeasts, unfiltered, with minimal sulphites) that tasted, they claimed, far more vividly of the grape, growing area, soil and climate. Or what the French call 'terroir. In certain countries, such as Georgia, natural wine production has persisted for centuries.

How is natural wine defined?

There are no set rules governing sulphite levels or what low-intervention means. Most natural wines are made with organic or biodynamically grown grapes but many winemakers work without official certification. They want to experiment with heritage grapes or styles without interference. In France, natural wine operates outside the highly regulated appellation system that governs wine production.

Why are people so excited by natural wine?