- Advice
What Is Natural Wine? (And Should You Be Drinking It?)
Cloudy, funky, divisive and increasingly everywhere. A plain-English guide to natural wine, without the dogma.
- Words By House of Decant
Few things divide a wine table like natural wine. Some drinkers adore it, others recoil. Most have no idea what the term actually means.
There is no legal definition, which is half the problem, but the idea is simple enough: natural wine aims for as little intervention as possible, in the vineyard and the cellar. That usually means organic or biodynamic farming, wild fermentation with native yeasts, no additives to speak of, and little or no added sulphur at bottling.
At its best, it tastes vividly alive. At its worst, it tastes faulty. The skill is telling the two apart.
The Orange Wine Overlap
Much natural wine crosses over with orange wine, white grapes fermented on their skins like a red, which is where a lot of the funk and grip comes from. Not all natural wine is orange, and not all orange wine is natural, but the two travel in the same circles.
Where to Start
You do not have to dive into the deep, cloudy end. Plenty of thoughtful growers farm cleanly and make honest, low-intervention wines that are simply delicious rather than challenging. Start there, with transparent producers who let the fruit speak, and work outward if the style grabs you.
So should you be drinking it? Try it with an open mind and no obligation to love all of it. The best natural wines are thrilling; the rest is a matter of taste, and there is no wrong answer.
