As the world of wine trends towards an eco-minded consciousness, consumers are tasked with navigating a whole new vocabulary and a whole lot of questions. What is natural, or "natty," wine? Is that the same as organic or biodynamic wine? And why are some wines not considered vegan if the main ingredients are grapes and yeast? If you're feeling confused, you're not alone.
These terms-natural, organic, biodynamic, and vegan-describe overlapping, but not interchangeable, qualities of wine. For instance, while all natural wines are organic (since growing organic grapes is a prerequisite for making natural wines), not all organic wines are natural (organic wine cellar regulations sometimes permit the use of additives and fining agents that aren't typically used in natural winemaking).
This confusion arises in part because "natural" is not a legally defined category, and as the category grows, so does greenwashing. Wine shoppers need to be informed to ask the right questions when seeking a bottle.
Here's what you need to know.
Natural, or low-intervention, wine describes a lot of the bottles that our eyes gravitate towards for their rainbow labels and wax-sealed corks. While there isn't a legal definition, the term has come to broadly refer to wines made with the bare minimum of chemical or winemaker intervention in the cellar-no additives, no filtering, no cultured yeasts, no chemicals, and either no added or limited added sulfur, to name a few. They also aren't aged in oak barrels, which means they lack the typical woodsy character.
The most commonly agreed upon definition for "natural" is a wine that's fermented spontaneously with native yeast and contains only trace amounts of added sulfites (commonly used for preservation; not to be confused with natural sulfites, which all wines have). Natural wines are typically neither filtered nor fined, so these wines may contain particulates or appear cloudy from dissolved solids floating around. Because of these non-interventionist factors, natural wine can have a shorter shelf life and is generally produced in smaller quantities.
Natural wines are often described as funky, barnyard-y, or like a jazzed-up juice (or even kombucha). But the point of natural wines is that they taste unique-even within the same producer or vintage. While lots of them indeed taste tart like vinegar, plenty of natural wines exhibit a smoother taste that can be similar to a wine made with more intervention. The lack of added sulfites or processing additives simply contributes to a lack of homogenization in taste.
Because there is no legal definition of natural wine, it's a challenging category to pin down. Many wines may be influenced by the artistic labels or eco-conscious language of the natural wine world but don't necessarily follow its practices. Actress Cameron Diaz, for instance, famously launched a "clean" wine that doesn't actually meet standards that most natural wine practitioners follow.
This murkiness is why, if you're interested in drinking a natural wine, it's important to ask questions about the producers when choosing a bottle. That's part of wine culture, anyway: slowing down, learning about the land and people who grew the grapes, and tasting the results.
An important distinction: All natural wines are organic, but not all organic wines would be considered natural. Some organic wine cellar regulations permit the use of additives and fining agents that are against the spirit of natural winemaking.
According to the USDA, produce can be considered organic if it's certified to have grown on soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. With organic wines, the U.S. and the E.U. have different requirements for organic certification. Similarly, in other wine-growing regions, whether Argentina or New Zealand, wines can obtain organic certification from local certifying bodies. In the U.S., to acquire the USDA organic seal, wineries must grow grapes without synthetic fertilizers, forgo added sulfites, and ensure all ingredients going into the wines, including yeast, are certified organic.
In Europe, the most notable difference is the amount of added sulfites permitted in the final product. E.U.-certified organic wines can contain up to 100 mg/L total sulfites for red wines and up to 150 mg/L total sulfites for whites and rosé. USDA-certified organic wines, on the other hand, must skip added sulfites.
What about a wine that is made with "made with organic grapes"? This means that additional ingredients used in the process, like yeast, need not be organic (even though the wine still can't be produced with the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilizers). While these wines can state they are made with organic grapes, they still can't use the USDA organic certification. So even an E.U.-certified organic wine might only be considered "made with organic grapes" over in the States, in part because of the allowing of added sulfites. Under the "made with organic grapes" label, the USDA allows 100 mg/L of added sulfites.
Unlike with organic wines, classifying a wine as biodynamic is not a distinction that changes across continents. The practices behind biodynamic winemaking started in the 1920s with Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who believed in a method of farming based around a specific astronomic calendar. The official definition of biodynamic farming, according to the Biodynamic Association, is "a spiritual-ethical-ecological approach to agriculture, food production, and nutrition." To Steiner, the method was a way to create a sustainable winemaking system, one that sees the vineyard as its own organism.
Biodynamic farming also instructs followers to use certain fertilization practices. One of particular interest is filling cow horns with compost, burying them in the vineyard, and digging them up later. Because most biodynamic farmers also employ organic practices like avoiding pesticides, and depend on compost rather than chemical fertilizer, many biodynamic wines are also organic in practice.
But not all biodynamic wines are organic, and not all can be considered natural, as they can contain up to 100 mg/L of added sulfites. On the flip side, the question of whether natural or organic wines can be biodynamic entirely depends on the practices that the winemaker employs, like the calendar and compostings. If they follow these requirements, natural and organic wines can also be biodynamic.
You won't necessarily taste a difference in a biodynamic wine versus a non-biodynamic one, but you'll know that a lot of care went into its creation. In World of Wine, sommelier André Mack points to a helpful indication of whether a wine is biodynamic: the Demeter logo on the bottle. This nonprofit organization is dedicated to biodynamic practices in farming and sets forth standards for biodynamic certification of wines.
You'd think that all wines are vegan given wine is made of grapes and yeast, but this isn't always the case. Recently, more wines have begun to market themselves as vegan-friendly, in response to the growing number of people interested in eliminating animal products from their diets.
Traditional fining agents, which help remove sediment that can't be removed by filtration, are what typically make a wine unsuitable for vegans. Mack describes that if a wine is certified as vegan, "you know that this wine is not refined with egg whites," which many winemakers use. Casein (protein found in milk) and gelatin (protein made from animal collagen) are also commonly used.
With vegan wines, winemakers either leave the particles to sink to the bottom of the bottle or use non-animal fining products like limestone or pea protein to filter them out. This difference in the fining process does not necessarily affect the taste of the wine, as fining agents are filtered away or evaporated.
Vegan wines also forego the use of beeswax, used to seal bottles, and agglomerated corks, which can use milk-based glues. Regulations in both the U.S. and E.U. do not currently require wineries to list fining agents on a label, so if you're seeking out vegan wines, you might have to rely on a retailer or a specific producer.
Vegan wines aren't always natural. While vegan winemakers face strict requirements for what fining agents they employ, they still use fining agents, albeit different from those of so-called "conventional" wines. Natural wines, on the other hand, typically do not use fining agents at all.
A subset of natural wines, zero-zero asserts that zero was added and zero was taken out of the wine. In other words: It's a more extreme version of natural wine which forbids any winemaker intervention (no added sulfites or other additives, no fining or filtering). Some in the zero-zero crowd believe non-zero-zero wines cannot even be considered natural. In this minimalist approach, winemakers also rely on the naturally occurring yeasts on the grapes and in the cellar for fermentation, rather than commercial yeasts. While trickier to control, these yeasts produce a more nuanced flavor, according to producers who favor the method.
Many zero-zero winemakers, like Unturned Stone Productions and Deux Punx, both of which have a few zero-zero wines in their natural wine lineups, produce in smaller quantities and make a few hundred cases a year.
But zero-zero winemaking is still fringe in the overall wine scene-and controversial. Some believe that these wines showcase greater complexity, while others think that zero-zero wines simply taste bad and are too radical. Zero-zero winemaking raises the question of whether there is a point at which a winemaker should intervene before a wine gets too funky or even poses food-safety risks.
Still, zero-zero believe minimum intervention means maximal flavor. "It's like a Heath bowl versus a bowl from Ikea. It's more delicate. It's more crafted. And yeah, maybe it's a little chipped," Graham Shelton of Slow Dance Wines in Petaluma tells the San Francisco Chronicle.