Clarifying the Unclarified: Answering some Questions on Natural Wine
Natural wine seems to divide tasters into two categories: devotee and detractor. My two feet - and my palate - are squarely planted in the dirt of the latter camp, but I wholeheartedly respect the intent and benevolence propelling the natural wine movement, that of purity. In my role of wine consultantant and sommeliere, I’ve been asked countless questions about the wines called ‘natural.’ Let’s dig in that dirt!
What is wine?
Wine is fermented grape juice, an agricultural product that dates back at least 6,000 years. Wine is historical, cultural, romantic, enjoyable, an exalter of food, sometimes sublime and quite often transportive and deserving of pure reverence, but it is nonetheless, the outcome of agricultural activity. Like all our foodstuffs, wine ought to be produced cleanly and in harmony with nature, with no noxious inputs that poison earth and humans. Personally, I don’t find the addition of a bit of sulfites to be venomous nor unnatural, and it is often this very element, sulphur, that separates ‘natural’ wine from ‘classic.’
How did sulfites become so fraught?
The FDA estimates 1% of the population has an allergy to sulfites. Allergic reactions can include migraine headaches, deep flushing of the skin, and/or difficulty breathing, especially for asthmatics. For this reason, if the SO2 content in a wine exceeds 10 parts per million, a warning of ‘contains sulfites’ must be included on the label.
The average wine will have about 50 -100 ppm, while some mass-produced wines may weigh in at 200 ppm, still well below the 350 ppm allowed in the USA. Curiously, I have yet to see a similarly frightening warning on the canned foods and fruit juices, nuts, seafood and sausages where sulfites are also found. French fries have about 1900 parts per million and dried fruit close to 2000!
Back to wine!
Organic agriculture and low intervention in the winery are the basic tenets of ‘natural wine.’ No chemicals in the field, no SO2 (sulphur dioxide; sulfites) in the vats, and no fining and/or filtering of the wine to clear it of particulate matter. Pure and simple.
On the other hand, ’classic wine’ may involve chemical treatments in the vineyard, although many are sustainably, organically, or even biodynamically farmed. In the winery, classic winemaking may involve fining and clarifying the wine, with bentonite, egg whites, or marine products, for example. Also, sulfites may be added one to three times during the vinification process: possibly right after harvest, once during fermentation, and again just before bottling.
Large-scale wineries, where unwanted yeast and bacteria are otherwise hard to control, tend to use more sulfites. Smaller, artisanal wineries often restrict the quantity of each application or even the number of applications themselves, adding SO2 only at bottling, for example. They view these interventions as a way to preserve the precious juice they’ve spent an entire vintage creating - and generations perfecting.
What are the differences between ‘natural’ and ‘classic’ wines on the palate?
While I embrace ‘clean’ agriculture, I reject the ‘dirty’ flavors in wine that stem from too little intervention. It bears noting that sulfites are byproduct of fermentation, occuring naturally in all wine in small quantities. So, additional sulphur is actually a natural way to inhibit secondary fermentations, microbial growth, to maintain vitality and clarity in a wine, allowing it to progress gracefully into its intended age, yet is mostly rejected in natural wine circles.
When first bottled, most natural wines are bright and brimming with the primary aromas of fresh fruit. Bumptious and a little sweet, they are attractive and quaffable, if not terribly complex nor deep. The character of the varietal is vivid but the place of provenance may be indistinguisable. They make groovy picnic wines or snazzy salumi wines when chilled. There is an irresistible innocence and purity to this juice, for it is energetic and feels like it gushed from a spigot in a winery.
However, after a few months, time takes a precipitous toll, and natural wines may start to bear a striking resemblance to kombucha. Remember, they have not been preserved nor stabilized in any way, and four months can weigh as heavily as forty years.
The wine may become lightly effervescent because re-fermentation happens readily in juice that has not been stabilized. They can remind us of hard cider, indeed the term ‘cidery’ is often used. There can be pronounced animal notes that give the wine, at best, - and I’m being very forgiving - a 'wild side,’ or at worst a dead mouse flavor. Lady bug taint, an unpleasant peanut aroma in wine, is often present. The inherent characteristics of individual grape varieties disappear altogether; the sauvignon blanc becomes indistinguishable from the riesling, the cabernet franc twins with the malbec. Any remnants of terroir have vanished. The wine is reduced to its very essence of fermented grape juice, attractive to some, repulsive to others.
While devotées love it, others see it as the deeply flawed wine it has become in too short a time. Over the years I have discarded countless bottles of natural wine purchased in June that were undrinkable by October.
On the other hand, a wine that has been lightly preserved, the wines I am calling ‘classic’ for the sake of argument, simply have more staying power, both on the palate as well as in the bottle. My favorites are those made by conscientious, small-to-medium producers who espouse sustainability not as a buzz word but as a tradition for keeping their vineyards safe and viable. The wines are also alive and vibrant on the palate, but show more complexity, texture, and depth. There is usually varietal definition and more distinct regional typicity.
Tasting a good, classic wine is a sensuous experience. It unfolds slowly at first sip with pleasant flavors and a bright beckoning. Sensations build as the wine spreads across the palate, asks to be held there, and offers up ten or twenty or thirty distinct flavors. It changes and broadens further as you exhale, sending signals to your brain that might awaken olfactory experiences from last autumn’s walk in the park or the flowers you picked for your mom when you were eight. Berries in a pie or peaches on a platter. Salty beach air or post-rain cement. Smoke from a grill or incense or a beehive. Fresh straw or dried pineapple. Roses, lilacs, lilies of the valley, tulips, gardenias, peonies or pansies. There is abundance and there is quiet energy. The life teeming within the vineyard cycles, lovingly tended and finally encapsulated in glass, has been preserved - and deserves to be.
Did you actually call sulphur a ‘trapper of terroir??’
Yes, I did! The addition of sulphur allows a snapshot of an utterly unique time and place to be enjoyed into the future. I see a light dose of SO2 as a trapper of terroir. The vigneron (grapegrower / winemaker) is a proud species, and truly wants to show you what her vineyard offers, and since you live thousands of miles away from the spigot, she must put it in a bottle and conserve it properly so you get the full picture. To me the purpose of a little sulphur is that simple: to gently hold the components together so they evolve slowly and in harmony.
Do you find all classic wines brimming with beauty, offering up pleasure and cleanliness?
Of course not. There are poorly made wines and many admiral attempts from unfortunate vineyards. There are over-oaked wines utterly lacking in freshness, and wines so tainted with bret (brettanomyces, a an unwanted yeast strain that gives a sweaty horse aroma) that the word ‘clean’ simply cannot be used. There are point-seeking, over-ripe wines that enshroud my palate in a purple haze of cloy as well as rustic wines so tannic I gasp. The mass-produced wines I consistently disparage all tend toward sweet, with a short, fat finish, often delivering a stout headache as their ‘staying power.’ These are flaws, just as mouse, sour, peanut, armpit, diapers, re-fermented, and blowsy are flaws.
The best wines are the ones with no flaws, or a flaw so minimal as to be enchanting, like the little gap between your lover’s front teeth. The matter of taste will chime in here. Thorny topic, but flaws remain flaws. While the cute little separation in your mate’s two front teeth is insignificant and perhaps endearing, a moral character flaw would be disqualifying. Ultimately we will all drink and mate as we see fit, based on experience and the wisdom that comes with it.
Glossary / Definitions
There are mis-categorizations in bars, restaurants, and retail stores alike. For example, ‘orange wine’ has somehow become a catch-all phrase for natural wine, an incorrect overgeneralization. It’s time to get specific! Categorization brings the consumer closer to the product. (See my last blog, the Perfect Wine List for more on this subject). Wine has long been a baffling topic for most, so reducing the befuddlement is one way to encourage guests to drink more wine and be more delighted!
Here are some basic definitions. I welcome thoughts and opinions.
Ancestral wine: Also referred to as Pet Nat (pétillant naturel), ancestral wine is lightly effervescent and dates back to the early 1500’s. The light carbonation is produced by bottling the wine before the primary fermentation (in vats) has finished. Once bottled and stoppered, the fermentation continues and the trapped carbon causes fizzy bubbles. SO2 is usually not applied. It differs from the far more labor intensive Traditional Method (méthode champenoise or méthode traditionelle), which requires provoking a second fermentation in bottle by the addition of yeast and sugar and trapping it by a crown or cork stopper. Traditional Method is required for serious, top-tier sparkling wines such as Champagne, Cava, Corpinnat, Prosecco, etc.
Biodynamic wine - Biodynamic wines are certified by an international organization called Demeter. The rigorous certification process requires that both the vineyard and the winery adhere to biodynamic practices. Up to 100 ppm of added sulfites are permitted, so some biodynamic wines are ‘natural’ while others are more ‘classic.’ Biodynamics is an agricultural system developed by Rudolph Steiner in the early 1920’s after chemical warfare in WWI ravaged the soil throughout much of Europe. Biodynamic agriculture considers the farm itself a living, individual organism that must live in harmony with nature rather than antagonistically. Each farm is a closed-loop system, producing its own nutrients and treatments. Animals keep the soil healthy. Compost and manure are used for fertilizer. Herbal preparations are applied as both nutrition and cure. Cow horns filled with manure are buried all winter to slowly balance the microbiome of the soil. (It’s not magic, it’s microbiology!). The phases of the moon order the agricultural activity such as pruning, treating, and harvesting. The philosophy is guided by a commitment to to be interconnected with the land such that health and vitality are shared and preserved. Demeter USA was founded in 1985.
Low intervention - Low intervention wines are not manipulated during the vinification process, meaning there are no added yeasts, coloring, flavoring, enzymes, fining, filtering, etc. Minimal sulfites may or may not be used as it is not an official term.
Natural wine: Also called low-intervention or raw wine, natural wines are characterized by organic agriculture and low-intervention vinification processes, particularly the lack of added sulfites (SO2) and fining/filtering. The resulting unadulterated wine is prone to re-fermentation and turbidity, as well as flaws such as mousy, tangy, sour, and/or sulphuric (rotten egg) notes.
Orange wine: Orange wines are the original white wines, dating back thousands of years, produced by prolonged grape skin contact with the juice (rather than immediate pressing and discarding of skins) and oxidation. Amphorae are the traditional vessels. Both the skins the oxidation are responsible for the orange hue which can be any shade from pale to rusty.
Organic wine: In order to be labeled organic by the USDA, a wine must be made from grapes that were both farmed and vinified organically. No synthetic substances may be applied in the vineyard nor the winery, including pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Any added yeast must be organic, and no sulfites can be added. In Europe, up to 100 ppm of sulfites may be applied.
Raw wine: Another term for natural wine that connotes purity but is in essence misleading as wines are never pasteurized nor cooked, with the exception of a handful of very old and traditional styles, i.e. in Cahors, the Rogomme from medieval times.
Wine made with organic grapes: All agricultural activity must exclude synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Up to 100 ppm of sulfites may be applied in the winery and any added yeast does not have to be organic. Fining and filtering are allowed
Zero-Zero - This is a term used for natural wines to indicate that zero was added and zero was taken away. There can be no addition of any chemicals in the vineyard nor in the the winery, nor any removal of particulate matter from the wine by filtration.
Next month’s blog will discuss erasing the divisiveness in wine. “Pendulums Gotta Swing: Drink Small to Save the Earth.”
Deborah Hansen
Wine Matters, LLC
May 1, 2026