Natural wine, defined.

A clay fermentation and aging vessel, used from Georgia to Italy to California. Clay breathes like wood but adds no flavor, so amphora wines keep bright fruit with a rounder, earthier texture than steel.

A farming system that treats the vineyard as a self-sustaining organism — composts, cover crops, lunar-calendar rhythms, and preparations instead of synthetic chemicals. Certified by Demeter. Not automatically natural wine, but most natural producers farm this way or close to it.

A wild yeast that produces barnyard, leather, smoked-bacon, and band-aid aromas. In small doses it adds savory character — classic in some French reds. When it dominates, it flattens a wine into a caricature. The most argued-about funk of all.

Fermenting whole, uncrushed grapes in a CO2-filled tank so fermentation starts inside each berry. Produces vivid color, low tannin, and candied, bubblegum-bright fruit — the technique behind Beaujolais and much of the glou-glou canon.

A light-bodied, low-tannin red served cold — Gamay, Frappato, Zweigelt, Poulsard. A natural wine staple that ignores the room-temperature rule because freshness matters more than convention.

A specific bottling or blend from a producer — one producer usually makes several cuvées. On natural wine lists, the cuvée name is often how you tell a producer's wild bottling from their entry-level glou-glou.

The compound that smells like butter or buttered popcorn, made during malolactic fermentation — the source of 'buttery' Chardonnay. Not a fault, and easy to confuse with mousiness, which is a stale-cracker taste on the finish you can't actually smell.

Different grape varieties planted together in one vineyard, picked and fermented as one wine. The old-world default before monoculture — revived by natural winemakers for the complexity and resilience it brings.

A spectrum of wild, unconventional aromas in wine — barnyard, kombucha tang, cider, cheese rind — usually produced by native yeasts, minimal sulfites, or skin contact. Funk can be character or a fault depending on intensity and your palate.

French onomatopoeia for glug-glug: light, juicy, dangerously drinkable wine that asks to be chilled and finished. The gateway style of natural wine — think chilled Gamay, young Cinsault, anything you'd drink from a tumbler.

The spent yeast cells left after fermentation. Aging wine on its lees adds creamy texture and bready depth. Many natural wines stay on lees for months because racking and filtering are kept to a minimum.

The umbrella philosophy of natural winemaking: do as little as possible in the cellar. Native yeasts, no additives, no fining or filtering, minimal or no sulfites. The winemaker's job is to guide, not construct.

A fault that tastes like stale crackers or corn chips, appearing on the finish and building with each sip. Caused by microbes in low-sulfite wines; you can't smell it, only taste it. The one funk almost nobody defends.

The yeasts naturally present on grape skins and in the cellar, used for spontaneous fermentation instead of lab-selected commercial strains. They ferment less predictably and produce wilder, more site-specific aromatics — a signature of natural wine.

Wine made with minimal intervention: organically or biodynamically farmed grapes, fermented with native yeasts, and bottled with little or no added sulfites. In most countries there's no legal definition (France has a voluntary Vin Méthode Nature label since 2020) — it's a way of letting the grape and the land speak, not a certification.

A producer who buys grapes or finished wine from growers rather than farming their own vines. Traditionally industrial-scale, but a new wave of natural négociants work with organically farmed fruit from trusted growers.

Wine from grapes grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. Organic certification is mostly about farming (EU rules also limit some cellar additives and sulfites; US "organic wine" allows no added sulfites). It doesn't require native yeasts or rule out filtration. Natural wine starts organic and goes further.

What happens when wine meets too much oxygen: bruised apple, nutty, sherry-like notes. Intentional and beautiful in styles like Jura's vin jaune; a fault when it happens by accident. Context is everything.

Sparkling wine made by the méthode ancestrale: bottled before the first fermentation finishes, so the remaining sugar creates natural bubbles. An older method than Champagne's, often lower in alcohol, gentler in fizz, and wildly variable bottle to bottle.

A light, fizzy drink made by rewetting and re-pressing already-pressed grape skins. Historically the field worker's drink; now a low-alcohol natural wine category of its own.

Aroma compounds (methoxypyrazines) that smell like green bell pepper, cut grass or jalapeño. Naturally high in Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc, and stronger when grapes are picked less ripe — a signature of cool Loire reds.

A large egg-shaped clay vessel buried in the earth, used in Georgia for thousands of years to ferment and age wine; UNESCO lists the qvevri method as intangible cultural heritage. The original natural winemaking technology — temperature-stable, additive-free, and the ancestor of the modern amphora revival.

Sulfur compounds that smell like struck match, garlic, or rubber, formed when wine is made with little oxygen exposure. Often blows off with air or a hard swirl — a reduced wine can be hiding something great underneath.

The aroma compound behind black pepper in wine — classic in cool-climate Syrah and found in Grüner Veltliner. It's the same molecule that gives peppercorns their smell.

White wine made like a red: the juice ferments with the grape skins for days to months, extracting color, tannin, and grip. The result ranges from golden to deep amber, with tea, dried fruit, and umami notes. Georgia has made wine this way, in clay qvevri, for thousands of years.

A preservative and antioxidant used in winemaking for centuries. All wine contains a little from fermentation. Conventional wine may legally carry several times more than natural wine, which adds little (often under ~30 mg/L in total) or none. Sulfites stabilize wine; leaving them out is why natural wine feels alive — and travels nervously.

The taste of place: the soil, slope, climate, and farming that make a wine from one vineyard different from its neighbor's. Natural winemaking exists largely to protect terroir from being processed away.

Wine bottled without fining agents (egg white, casein, bentonite) or filtration. Keeps texture, aroma, and a little haze — cloudiness in natural wine is a byproduct of leaving the wine whole, not a defect.

A winegrower — someone who farms the vines and makes the wine, as opposed to buying fruit. Natural wine culture centers the vigneron because the farming is the winemaking.

'Thirst wine' — simple, fresh, low-alcohol wine made for drinking, not contemplating. The opposite of a trophy bottle. Most glou-glou is vin de soif; the terms travel together.

France's voluntary natural wine label, validated by the French fraud authority (DGCCRF) in 2020. Certified organic grapes, hand harvest, native yeasts, nothing added, no filtration, and no added sulfites, or at most 30 mg/L total with a separate "<30 mg/L" logo. Most natural producers don't use it.

Acetic-acid compounds that read as a kombucha tang, balsamic note, or nail-polish edge. A little VA gives lift and energy; too much means the wine is on its way to vinegar. Natural wines run higher VA because nothing suppresses it.

Fermenting grapes with their stems attached instead of destemming. Adds spice, structure, and a green freshness; risky with unripe stems. Common in natural cellars because it needs healthy, hand-picked fruit.

Wine with nothing added and nothing removed — no sulfites at any stage, no additives, no fining, no filtration. The strictest expression of natural winemaking, and the most variable bottle to bottle.