What is trendy natural wine? Booze quality rated from exceptional to just plain weird
If you are a wine lover, you may have seen, or even tried, a natural wine.They’ve been gaining a following for years, and the holidays could be a nice time to see what they’re about.What exactly is a natural wine? And what makes them special?Natural wines are produced with minimal human intervention.
The grapes are generally grown organically, and the winemaking process eschews additives, commercial yeasts and excessive sulfites.Fans say it is wine in its purest form: a reflection of the grape, the terroir and the vintage.It’s the way wine was made for thousands of years, before commercial wine-making existed.
For these reasons, natural wine has gone beyond just a category of wine, evolving into more of a winemaking philosophy.But the definition of “natural wine” isn’t fixed.Most are not labeled or “authenticated,” so you might have to do a little investigation.
(In France, some might be labeled “Vin Method Nature,” a designation also adapted by the EU in 2022.) Ask your wine purveyor or sommelier to point you in the right direction.In the U.S., you might see wines referred to as Zero Zero, which refers to zero additives and zero sulfites added.Alice Feiring is the author of six books on wine and the creator of The Feiring Line on Substack.She says that if you drink these wines regularly, you develop an instinct for identifying a natural wine: “Generally, in the mouth, the wine is more alive and open.”Natural wines’ distinctiveness, for her, “includes everything from the people and soils to the bottle and glass.”Oenophiles attracted to natural wines appreciate the winemakers’ efforts, which usually involve farming on small plots of land and limiting production.
Winemakers sometimes focus on grapes indigenous to particular areas, perhaps ancestral varietals that may not be as well known or commonly used.Maggie Dahill is beverage director at the restaurants Miss Ada and Theodora in Brooklyn, N.Y., which have robust natural win...