![]() Natural winemakers handpick their grapes instead of relying on machines to harvest them. Natural wine, then, is made from grapes not sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. In the simplest terms, that process has two parts: growing and picking grapes, and then turning them into wine through fermentation. Understanding natural wine requires a basic understanding of the (generally complex) winemaking process. Scruggs calls her product “just fucking fermented juice.” But “natural wine” is the term that is most widely used, and anyone at a natural-inclined wine store, wine bar, or restaurant will know what you mean when you use it.įor the purpose of this article, I am working under the assumption that natural wine is not a fraud, nor are its supporters delusional, but rather that it’s a highly debated and endlessly complicated topic that never ceases to get all manner of people riled up. Many people - winemakers, distributors, writers, sommeliers - take issue with the term “natural wine.” Some prefer the phrase “low-intervention” wine, or “naked” wine, or “raw” wine. It’s conventional wine that’s actually new.” “People think that natural wine is a fad or a new thing, but it’s the traditional way to make wine. In its purest form, it is wine made from unadulterated fermented grape juice and nothing else. Natural wine is more of a concept than a well-defined category with agreed-upon characteristics. “It’s conventional wine that’s actually new.” Here’s what natural wine is, how we moved away from - and back to - it, and where it’s heading next. (The history of sulfites complicates this some people believe that sulfites in one form or another were used to preserve wine as early as the eighth century BC.) “People think that natural wine is a fad or a new thing, but it’s the traditional way to make wine,” explains Krista Scruggs, a winemaker and farmer based in Vermont and Texas. And it’s become the subject of heated debate in the wine world, with natural wine purists arguing for its virtue and thrilling taste, and traditionalists criticizing the perceived flaws and even its idealism.īut while natural wine is recently trendy, it is not new: People have been making fermented grape juice without additives for thousands of years. But what makes a wine “natural” isn’t always clear to consumers who are more familiar with the under-$10 section at Trader Joe’s. It has become a source of indie social capital, with wine labels that are as feverishly followed and obsessed over as album covers in the ’80s. Now natural wine has become a signifier of bourgeois taste in certain social circles and on certain menus across the United States. “There wasn’t really a name for it yet,” but it was the stuff that we’ll now call natural wine, and she began importing it in 2000. They found it in a couple of bars, and later stumbled into a tasting of it hosted at a neighborhood restaurant. ![]() This wine tasted “totally different, and alive, and delicious,” she remembers. Therefore, natural wines are said to be the purest expression of the fruit, the most authentic product of the vineyard.When Jenny Lefcourt moved to Paris in the 1990s to study French literature and cinema, she and her friends started drinking a particularly exciting type of wine. Sulfites are not added and nothing extraneous is added to the juice. Since filtration is rare, there may be a cloudiness to the wine that is harmless. Only naturally occurring yeasts are used for fermentation, and mechanical processes in the wine making are avoided. ![]() Grapes are hand-picked and hand de-stemmed. In the winery, natural wines are made with minimal intervention. It also includes processes and timelines for enriching the soil, planting, pruning, and harvesting based on the phases of the moon and astrological signs. They may also be grown bio-dynamically which, in addition to no pesticides, involves enhancing the soil with certain organic preparations. ![]() The grapes are grown organically, meaning that they are not sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. Natural wines are wines made by people who approach their craft with a minimalist philosophy, both in the vineyard and in the winery. So-called natural wines are getting more attention lately as consumers pursue products deemed to be healthier and more authentic. ![]()
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