A sommelier once poured me something that smelled faintly of a farmyard. “It’s natural,” he said, in a tone that closed the conversation. I drank it anyway. It was strange, then interesting, then genuinely good. It took me another hour to figure out whether that was because of the farming, the winemaking, or just the grape.
That experience is, in miniature, the whole natural wine debate.
The term gets used to sell wine, to justify faults, to signal identity, and occasionally to describe something that actually is remarkable. What it never does is mean the same thing twice. There is no legal definition of natural wine anywhere in the world. No certification body, no official standard, no protected label. Which means when you see “natural” on a bottle or a wine list, you are entirely at the mercy of whoever put it there.
That’s not a reason to dismiss it. It’s a reason to understand what’s actually going on.
The farming side: where natural wine starts
Most people who make natural wine start from the same premise: the vineyard comes first. That means farming without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilisers. In practice, this usually means organic farming at a minimum, and often biodynamic.
Organic viticulture is the baseline. It prohibits most synthetic inputs and is certifiable under EU regulations. Biodynamic farming goes further: it treats the farm as a self-contained ecosystem, works according to a lunar calendar, and uses preparations made from herbs, minerals, and manure. Rudolf Steiner developed the philosophy in 1924. Whether you find the lunar calendar credible or not, the farming outcomes, healthier soil, stronger vine immune systems, better microbial diversity, are difficult to dispute.
Natural wine producers tend to farm organically or biodynamically, but not all organic or biodynamic producers make natural wine. The farming is necessary but not sufficient.
The cellar side: where it gets complicated
The more contested part is what happens after harvest. Conventional winemaking involves a long list of permitted additions and interventions: sulphur dioxide as a preservative, cultured yeast to control fermentation, enzymes, fining agents, filtration to remove particles and microbes. None of this is harmful. All of it shapes the wine.
Natural winemakers try to minimise or eliminate these interventions. The core principles, as most practitioners describe them:
Wild yeast fermentation. Instead of adding a packet of commercial yeast, selected for predictability and efficiency, you let the fermentation happen with whatever yeasts live on the grape skins and in the cellar. This produces more complex, unpredictable flavours. It also increases the risk of stuck fermentations and off-aromas.
Little or no sulphur dioxide. Sulphur is the most widely used preservative in winemaking, and for good reason: it inhibits oxidation and kills unwanted bacteria. Natural producers use far less, or none at all. This is where shelf stability becomes a genuine issue, bottles need careful temperature control and ideally consumption within a reasonable timeframe.
No fining or filtration. The wine goes into the bottle without being stripped of its texture. This is why natural wines are often cloudy or hazy. That’s not a fault, it’s particles of grape skin, yeast, and other organic matter. Aesthetically unfamiliar. Not harmful.
The loose consensus in the natural wine community is wines made from organically farmed grapes, fermented with wild yeast, with minimal sulphur additions. But, and this is important, none of this is legally enforced. The word “natural” on a label costs nothing and proves nothing.
Why natural wines taste different
Natural wines can taste extraordinary. They can also taste like something went wrong.
Funkiness. A range of smells from farmyard to leather to slightly sour. Often caused by Brettanomyces, a yeast that occurs naturally in wine environments. In small doses, Brett adds complexity, the kind of earthy depth you find in old Burgundy. In larger doses, it overwhelms the fruit and reads as a flaw.
Volatility. A slight vinegar edge, acetic acid, produced when acetic acid bacteria get involved during fermentation. Low levels add complexity. Higher levels are a fault.
Oxidation. Natural wines without sulphur protection are more exposed to oxygen. This can produce a nutty, Sherry-like quality that some producers pursue deliberately. In skin-contact (orange) wines, it’s often a feature. In light reds, it can mean the wine is simply tired.
Not all natural wines show these characteristics. The best ones don’t. But the natural wine movement has sometimes been reluctant to call a fault a fault, and that intellectual dishonesty has cost it credibility with sceptics. A wine that smells of mouse cage is not complex. It’s a mouse cage.
That said: I’ve drunk natural wines that were among the most vivid, alive, and memorable things I’ve ever tasted. The philosophy produces something real when the producer gets it right.
The spectrum, not the binary
The most useful way to think about natural wine is as a spectrum rather than a category.
At one end: conventionally produced wine, farmed with agrochemicals, fermented with commercial yeast, adjusted with additives, filtered for stability. At the other: wines farmed biodynamically, harvested by hand, fermented with wild yeast in open vessels, aged without additions, bottled unfiltered with no sulphur.
Most interesting wine sits somewhere in between. “Low-intervention” is a more honest term than “natural” for the middle ground, producers who farm carefully and interfere as little as possible in the cellar, without necessarily meeting every criterion of the natural wine canon. Many of the best wine producers in the world work this way without calling themselves natural. They don’t need the label. The wine speaks clearly enough.
How to navigate it in practice
Ask where the wine is from. Natural wine is not a style, it’s an approach. A natural wine from Muscadet will taste nothing like one from the Jura or Georgia. Understanding the region tells you far more than the “natural” label.
Look for transparency. Producers who publish their farming and cellar practices are making a verifiable claim. Producers who just use the word are not.
Be willing to try the strange ones. Some of the best discoveries in wine come from bottles that don’t smell like you expect. Give the funk ten minutes before writing it off.
Know when to draw the line. A wine that smells of nail polish remover (ethyl acetate) or mouse (4-ethylphenol at high concentration) is flawed. Natural production doesn’t make those acceptable. Send it back.
Where to start
If you want to experience what natural wine actually means at its best, these are worth seeking out:
Pierre Goiset, Muscadet, old vines, wild fermentation, no additions. One of the most honest wines in France.
Fattoria Fibbiano, Tuscany, biodynamic farming, indigenous varieties, wines of real clarity.
1979 Wines, Attica, proof that minimal intervention and ancient Retsina grapes produce something genuinely modern.
Patis Pluriel, Champagne, artisanal grower Champagne with low-intervention cellar practices.
Natural wine rewards curiosity more than most categories. Go in with questions rather than expectations.
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