Natural wine is not a style — it is an ethics. Low intervention, live cultures, minimal sulphites. What once occupied a fringe position has become one of the most intellectually exciting corners of the wine world. Here is how to navigate it.
The term 'natural wine' has no legal definition, which is simultaneously its greatest strength and its most significant weakness. At its best, it represents viticulture and vinification reduced to their essence: healthy grapes, wild yeasts, no additives beyond a minimal sulphite addition at bottling (or none at all). At its worst, it is a marketing term applied to flawed wines in the name of ideology.
What Low Intervention Actually Means
Conventional winemaking permits the addition of over 70 different compounds during production — including cultured yeasts, acid adjusters, tannin powder, and fining agents. A natural winemaker foregoes most or all of these. This does not automatically produce a better wine, but it does produce a wine that more accurately expresses its origin. The margin for error is smaller, and the successes are often extraordinary.
Orange and Skin-Contact Wines
White grapes fermented with extended skin contact — producing what are now called 'orange wines' — represent one of the most interesting categories in contemporary wine. The phenolics extracted from the skins provide structure and grip unusual in white wine, and the flavors range from dried apricot and walnut to chamomile and beeswax. They are challenging matches for food but remarkable ones: try them with aged cheeses, oxidative preparations, or anything with umami depth.
The best natural wines taste like a conversation with a place. The worst taste like the winemaker's opinion of that place. The distinction matters enormously.
— Isabelle Laurent, Wine Director
Natural wines, especially those with no sulphites, should be stored cool and consumed within a shorter window than conventional wines. Serve slightly cool to preserve freshness — 14°C for reds is often ideal.
Our Natural Wine Selection
We curate 40+ natural, biodynamic, and low-intervention references alongside our classical cellar. Ask about our monthly wine flight.
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Isabelle Laurent
Sommelier & Wine Director · Savora
