Natural Wine: The Plain-Spoken Guide

What natural wine is

Natural wine is an approach, not a grape, a region or a style. The idea is to make wine with as little intervention as possible, so what ends up in the glass comes from the fruit, the place and the year rather than from a toolkit of cellar corrections.

In practice that usually means four things:

• In the vineyard: no synthetic herbicides, pesticides or fertilisers. Most natural producers farm to certified organic or biodynamic standards, whether or not they pay for the certificate. Picking is usually by hand.
• In fermentation: only the yeasts already on the grapes and in the cellar (native yeast). No packaged yeast strains, no added nutrients or enzymes.
• In the cellar: nothing added to change taste, colour or texture: no added sugar, acid, tannin powder, oak chips or colourants. Many producers skip fining and filtering (unfined, unfiltered), which is why some bottles are hazy.
• At bottling: little or no added sulfur dioxide (sulfites). A wine with nothing added at all is often called zero-zero.

That's the core. Everything else (amphorae, skin contact, bubbles in the bottle) is a choice some natural winemakers make, not part of the definition.

What conventional winemaking is allowed to do

The contrast explains why natural wine exists. Wine law in the EU and the US authorises a long list of treatments and additives: cultured yeasts, yeast nutrients, enzymes, acidification or de-acidification, added tannins, fining agents, stabilisers, concentration, and sulfur dioxide well above what natural producers use. The EU list lives in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/934; the US list in 27 CFR 24.246. Almost none of it has to appear on the label.

None of that makes conventional wine bad. It makes it predictable, and that's the trade natural wine refuses: less control, more variation, more of the place. Natural vs conventional wine, side by side

Is there a legal definition?

Not in most places. "Natural wine" is not a protected term in the EU, the UK, Canada or the US, so the words on a label prove nothing on their own.

France is the exception, partly. In 2020 the French fraud authority (DGCCRF) validated a voluntary charter and label, Vin Méthode Nature, run by a producers' association. It sets rules on hand harvesting, certified organic grapes, native yeasts, no inputs, no filtration, and sulfites: none added before or during fermentation, and a cap of 30 mg/L total if any is added at bottling, with a separate logo for that case (the label's rules). Few producers use it, and plenty of celebrated natural wines don't carry it. What the Vin Méthode Nature label means

Wine fairs have their own rules too: RAW WINE, for instance, publishes a quality charter its exhibitors sign up to. These are useful signals, not law. Natural wine fairs

Natural vs organic vs biodynamic vs low intervention

These words get used interchangeably, and they shouldn't be:

• Certified organic is mostly about farming. In the EU, organic wine rules (Regulation (EU) 2018/848) also restrict some cellar additives and set lower sulfite limits. In the US, "organic wine" means no added sulfites at all, while "made with organic grapes" allows them (USDA).
• Biodynamic adds a farming philosophy and its own practices on top of organic farming, certified by bodies such as Demeter.
• Natural usually starts from organic or biodynamic farming and then goes further in the cellar.
• Low intervention is a looser, unregulated phrase, often used by producers who are close to natural but add a little more sulfur or filter some wines. What "low intervention" really means

Neither organic nor biodynamic certification requires native yeasts or rules out filtering. The longer comparison

What natural wine tastes like

There is no single natural-wine taste. A lot of it is bright, juicy and lower in alcohol: chillable reds, glou-glou wines meant for drinking rather than cellaring. Some is precise and mineral and would pass for a classic. And some is wild.

The wild part is what people mean by funky wine. Without packaged yeast, heavy sulfur and sterile filtration, other things get room to show:

• Brett (a wild yeast): leather, farmyard, smoked meat. Brett explained
• Volatile acidity: a kombucha or balsamic lift. VA explained
• Skin contact: tannin, tea, dried apricot in white wines made like reds. Orange wine explained
• Lees and no filtering: haze, texture, a yeasty edge. Why natural wine is cloudy
• Bubbles from the first fermentation: pét-nat, cloudy and often a little cidery.

Funk is a spectrum. A little can be thrilling; a lot can bury the fruit. Funky red, white and orange wine: what to expect

Character or fault?

This is the argument natural wine never finishes. Our working line: a style is something the winemaker chose and the wine still tastes of fruit and place; a fault is something that happened to the wine and erases both.

• Usually style: skin contact, haze, pét-nat cider notes, a whisper of brett, a little VA lift.
• Depends on the dose: brett, VA, reduction (struck match, often gone after air), oxidation.
• Fault: mousiness, a stale-cracker taste that builds on the finish. Almost nobody defends it. Mousy wine: what it is and how to spot it

Is funky wine flawed? The longer argument

Sulfites, health and hangovers

Sulfur dioxide protects wine from oxidation and spoilage. Fermentation makes a little on its own, so no wine is entirely sulfite-free. Natural producers add little or none. In the US, any wine with 10 parts per million or more must say "contains sulfites" (TTB). The truth about sulfites

On health, we keep it plain: there is no good evidence that natural wine is healthier, and it is still alcohol. Fewer additives is a real difference in what's in the bottle, not a health claim. What the evidence actually says · The hangover myth

Buying, storing and serving

• Storage: keep it cool and dark like any wine; low-sulfite wines are less forgiving of heat. Once open, many last a few days in the fridge, and some get better. How long natural wine lasts
• Temperature: light reds are often served cool. Should natural wine be chilled?
• Ordering: name a direction rather than a grape: light and chilled, a pét-nat, skin contact with grip, or "clean but natural". How to order natural wine
• Starting out: a beginner's case

Where to drink it, with proof

Anyone can write "natural wine" on a chalkboard. isitfunky only calls a bar, restaurant or shop proven when there's evidence on file: its own site says it pours natural wine, its wine list names natural producers we recognise, a named publication says so, or natural-wine importers list it as a stockist. Every venue shows its reasons, a source and the date we last checked. The Funk Score adds that proof up, point by point; ratings, reviews and payment never count, and nobody can pay to be listed or ranked.

Start with a city: Paris, New York, Montréal, London, Tokyo or every city. Or open the map. The producers index shows which natural producers turn up on which proven lists, and natural wine by the numbers is the whole dataset in figures.

Words you'll hear

The glossary defines every term in plain language: pét-nat, skin contact, qvevri, zero-zero, brett, VA, mousiness, carbonic maceration, glou-glou, vin de soif, piquette and more.