Natural Wine

The Idea

No certification body owns the term "natural wine," and that ambiguity has been used against it — by critics who dismiss it as marketing and by bad-faith producers who slap the label on anything vaguely rustic. In practice, the consensus among serious growers and importers is precise: organically or biodynamically farmed grapes, hand-harvested, fermented with indigenous yeast, bottled with no or minimal added sulfur, no fining, no filtration, no commercial additives. France's 2020 Vin Méthode Nature certification codified the strictest version: certified organic farming, indigenous yeast, no additives during vinification, and either zero or fewer than 30 mg/L total SO₂ at bottling. That framework isn't universally adopted, but it reflects the floor that serious producers already hold themselves to.

The movement traces its modern lineage to 1960s Beaujolais — Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Charly Thevenet, Guy Breton — four winemakers who looked back past the postwar chemical era to what their grandparents had done. The ideas were simple. Grapes from healthy soil. Fermentation that happens on its own. A cellar that doesn't correct what the vineyard already got right.

In the Vineyard

Everything begins in the soil. Natural winemakers farm organically or biodynamically — no synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers — and typically work toward certification even when they don't publicize it. Cover crops build microbial life. Compost replaces chemical inputs. Hand harvest is not optional: machine harvesters crush and oxidize fruit before it reaches the winery, destroying the intact berry necessary for gentle whole-cluster or whole-bunch work. Yields are kept low, not through intervention but through the discipline of not over-cropping — the vine stressed lightly so that what it produces carries real concentration.

In the Cellar

The cellar, in natural winemaking, is largely a place to stay out of the way.

Indigenous yeast fermentation relies on the native Saccharomyces and non-Saccharomyces populations present on grape skins and in the cellar environment. These fermentations start slowly, run long, and produce aromatic complexity that commercial yeast strains — selected for predictability and speed — simply don't.

Sulfur dioxide is the single most contested input. SO₂ inhibits oxidation and kills unwanted bacteria; it also suppresses the microbial activity that gives natural wine its character. Most serious producers add nothing during fermentation or aging, and either nothing or a modest dose — under 30 mg/L total — at bottling.

No fining or filtration. Fining agents — including egg whites, casein, and isinglass — strip tannin and colloids from wine, removing texture along with anything considered undesirable. Filtration does the same more aggressively. Natural wine skips both.

No additives. Conventional winemaking permits over 70 legal additives — acidification agents, tannin powders, color concentrates, enzyme treatments, micro-oxygenation, reverse osmosis for alcohol adjustment. Natural wine uses none of them.

The Debate

The criticisms of natural wine are not all bad faith, and we don't dismiss them.

Mousiness — a volatile, savory off-flavor caused by tetrahydropyridine compounds — is the most damaging flaw in the category. It is suppressed by SO₂; its prevalence in low- and no-sulfur wines is not coincidental. It can be transient, diminishing with time in bottle, but wines that arrive mousy are often sold before they've had a year to settle.

Brettanomyces produces the barnyard, band-aid, smoked meat compounds familiar from many natural wine lists. At low levels, some tasters find Brett adds complexity; at high levels it swamps everything else.

Inconsistency is real. Wines made without the stabilizing toolkit of conventional production are more vulnerable to temperature during transport and to variation between vintages.

Our Position

We import natural wine because we think it produces better, more honest wine — not because it's better for the environment (though it is), not because it's a point of difference in the market (though it is), but because the evidence in the glass is compelling when the work is done correctly.

Every producer in our portfolio farms organically or biodynamically. All work with indigenous yeast. None fine or filter. Sulfur, where used, is minimal and deliberate. These aren't marketing positions; they're practices we vet before we import.

What we won't excuse: mousiness that hasn't resolved by the time a wine reaches a consumer, Brett at levels that obscure the fruit and place, oxidation that reads as neglect rather than intention. Natural wine done badly is worse than conventional wine done well. The philosophy doesn't cover for bad farming or a dirty cellar — it demands more from both.