What is 'natural' wine

There seems to be a developing consensus that 'natural wine' can be defined primarily by whether it has yeast added to it or not. This strikes me as very peculiar; given the whole gamut of additives and techniques that can be used in the cellar (eg yeast, bacteria, DAP, enzymes, tannins, wood chips, refrigeration, the addition of water, fining, filtration) why yeast?

Does anyone understand this?

[James Roscoe]

I would have thought ALL wine was natural. Just goes to show what I don't know.

There seems to be a developing consensus that 'natural wine' can be defined primarily by whether it has yeast added to it or not.

Umm . . . this strikes me as one of TomHill's ConventionalWisdom claims. I can't say I've ever seen such a claim in print, nor noticed such a consensus developing among those who talk about wine. But, of course, I don't follow the chatter out there as closely as others do . . .

Cites? Sources?

I have to run in a minute but will try to add more info later. There is no agreement to the definition right now which is some of the problem. It primarily is concerned with what happens in the winery and not what happens in the vineyard. One can use all the chemicals they want in the vineyard and still be natural. Besides yeast, SO2 is another major issue of discussion. I would have to refer back to what I have seen as it relates to other additives as I honestly don't recall but would not be at all shocked to find that they also shun nutrients and enzymes. As to Jesus units I don't know.

A popular catch-phrase these days, and one I stand firmly opposed to.

From the moment a vintner decides how to plant his vines; what trellising system to use; what watering if any to rely on; what to do with/to the soil, if anything; all is human intervention. And certainly decisions as to when and how to harvest, and what happens in any winery on this planet all involves human decision making and in this is no longer "natural", natural of course referring here to what nature would do with those vines/grapes if they were simply left on the vine or to ferment after they fell.

Call a wine organic - no problem; call it biodynamic - no problem; but the minute we call it "natural" we are entering more into a philosophical rather than an oenological debate. And, in a phrase, indeed not taken from Plato but more from the Blues Brothers "Ain't no such thing as natural"!

Ye faithful curmudgeon
Rogov

[David M. Bueker]

If someone is doing genetic engineering on a yeast strain to use in wine then I might cry "that's not natural" (though I am not so scared of GM being a crazy scientist/engineer and all), but many yeast selections are just that - selections, not engineered mutants, and thus (much like grapevine selections) just part of the process.

In this part of the world, now that more and more people are using ambient yeasts, the debate centers more on additives, in particular SO2. The Spanish association of natural wine producers is the first such body (AFAIK) that has placed a numbers limit on what is and isn't 'natural' wine: 20 milligrams/liter of total SO2. If there's more, it ain't 'natural'. Why 20 mg? Well, they say that SO2 is a natural byproduct of fermentation, but that 'natural' SO2 has never been encountered in higher concentrations than 20 mg.

It all sounds extreme and, well, fundamentalist to me.

One of the consequences is the extreme instability of 'natural' wines, which must be kept at very low temperatures lest they do a re-fermentation, or worse, on you...

Victor, Hi....

I like your use of the word "fundamentalist" in regard to this issue. Indeed many who invoke the magical "natural" term are fundamentalists, and in this may be over-reacting to what they perceive as doctrine as it clashes with modern social, political and scientific endeavors.

Best
Rogov

I think we ought to be more careful with regard to separating human and natural. Are we...unnatural?

There seems to be a developing consensus that 'natural wine' can be defined primarily by whether it has yeast added to it or not.

Umm . . . this strikes me as one of TomHill's ConventionalWisdom claims. I can't say I've ever seen such a claim in print, nor noticed such a consensus developing among those who talk about wine. But, of course, I don't follow the chatter out there as closely as others do . . .

Cites? Sources?

http://www.morethanorganic.com/definiti ... tural-wine for starters, plus there's a holier-than-thou winebar in SF that thinks of themselves as selling 'natural' wine but seem only really interested in yeast, plus the definition of NW in 'Natural Wine Week' in SF recently revolved around yeasts.

Honored to be compared to the great Tom Hill.

Victor, Hi....

I like your use of the word "fundamentalist" in regard to this issue. Indeed many who invoke the magical "natural" term are fundamentalists, and in this may be over-reacting to what they perceive as doctrine as it clashes with modern social, political and scientific endeavors.

Best
Rogov

Seconded. This has aspects of religious belief, not reason.

I think we ought to be more careful with regard to separating human and natural. Are we...unnatural?

Indeed we humans are "natural" but only at the moment of birth, for after that not only nature but mankind acts open the neonate.

More than that, the first time the first person (or if we like, even pre-person) used something to clothe themselves or built a house, hut or tent we took our first steps away from being in that naive state. This damned cerebral cortex of ours sets us aside from "the natural". No robin red breast has ever air conditioned its nest; no grizzley bear has ever frozen a salmon; and as much as we like to credit whales and porpoises with "language", all they have is communication, for language is an unnatural thing at best having a past, present and future. The moment we encounter a bison that can talk of "tomorrow" I'd have to say that it too has left "the natural".

As I said, perhaps more of a philosophical question than anything else, for we humans (like wine scores) are indeed, somewhat removed from our pristine state.

Best
Rogov

http://www.morethanorganic.com/definiti ... tural-wine for starters, plus there's a holier-than-thou winebar in SF that thinks of themselves as selling 'natural' wine but seem only really interested in yeast, plus the definition of NW in 'Natural Wine Week' in SF recently revolved around yeasts.

Can certainly see what you're saying with regards to SF Natural Wine Week, but, to be honest, they don't offer any sort of coherent definition at all. Can't see what you're saying wrt morethanorganic.com, whose def is clearly not limited to yeast:

A natural wine is a wine made,

* in small quantities,
* by an independent producer,
* on low-yielding vineyards,
* from handpicked, organically grown grapes,
* without added sugars or foreign yeasts,
* without adjustments for acidity,
* without micro-oxygenation or reverse-osmosis.

Most natural wines are neither filtered nor fined. The few that are will either be filtered extremely lightly or fined with organic egg-white.

A natural wine contains no more than,

* 10 mg/l total sulphur if red,
* 25 mg/l total sulphur if white.

If sulphur dioxide is added, it will be only at bottling and only in the tinest quantities. Many natural wines are made without the addition of sulphur dioxide at any point.

posted by Rogov:" This damned cerebral cortex of ours sets us aside from "the natural"

Daniel, I'd like to know why you think that statement is true. I don't at all mean to be argumentative, but it seems to me if we're going to have any understanding of what we're discussing here we need to be more clear than that.

best,
Steve

[James Roscoe]

Don't eat corn (maize if you prefer) if you are squeamish about GM products! Those ancient Americans had it all over genetic mutation.

You know, that "definition", or more precisely a set of arbitrarily selected rules and philosophies, could be construed as rather hilarious in many ways.

Oh, it's easy enough to parse the intent of the rules, but almost every one can be singled out and questioned.

In small quantities: "natural wine" can't be made in large quantities? Or even medium sized quantities? And what constitutes small anyway? That's sort of a weasel term, isn't it; comfortably vague enough, sorta like those pants for aging boomers that are "comfortable fit" or "relaxed fit"? What if they took large quantities and divided them up into lots of small quantities, would that be allowed? This is much like the so-called 'small batch' silliness in bourbons. And reductio ad absurdum: small is inherently good; large is inherently bad. But for god's sake don't actually make it a real, honest measurement.

By an independent producer--- An independent producer, assuming they mean of course a non-corporate producer? So....if the producer is "independent", like one I can think of right now that I was just researching and writing about, the assumption is they have no pressures to make "corporate style" decisions. Yet that same "independent producer" has four other partners/investors, otherwise he never would have been able to start his vineyard and winery in the first place. He also has a wife, who laughingly considers herself an equal partner, and equally effected by the decisions he makes, so feels entitled to let her opinions be known and to be involved in decisions. So hence and therefore, the only possible entity that could make "natural wine" would have to be a single, orphaned, without family but independently wealthy individual who could readily afford to lose everything he/she owned without worrying about their living or livelihood afterwards. Right? Otherwise, how could they say they were "independent"?

On low-yielding vineyards---- Ah, the vague weasel words again, with no real definition. And I thought "low-yielding vineyard" had been pretty much established to be a mythical chalice term; that the most importance element was the balanced vine, not the overall tonnage of a vineyard (especially when that tonnage isn't defined). Would the same amount of low yield apply to every natural wine producer all over the world, a single standard measurement. Hell, I know one grower who by other lights could classify as a natural wine producer---but he informed me that each and every vineyard he has is so different he expects differing yields from each one. So now he's in a situation of having some vineyards he classifies as "consistently low yielding vineyards" and some as "very productive and vigorous" vineyards. So strike him as a natural wine candidate!

From handpicked, organically grown grapes--- Well, at least we have a firm definition here, with defined edges!!! Only handpicked, eh? I couldn't, say, machine harvest, then meticulously sort all the MOG so I end up with the most particular grapes? That wouldn't work? Gotta be handpicked?

I'll pass on the next three, but

"Most natural wines are neither filtered nor fined. The few that are will either be filtered extremely lightly or fined with organic egg-white."--- Most? Few? That sounds sorta quibbly and loose, dunnit? And since when did running egg white through a wine become a "natural" thing to do??? And how, exactly does fining with egg white differ from other potential forms of fining? And can they now go back to using blood, as they used to do, if egg whites are okay? I'm really trying to get a handle on this 'what's natural and what's un-natural' line, but I'm having a hard time of it. It smells to me like "rules I made up that I like."

And re sulphur: Okay, here we have some progress. Numbers are given; limits are clearly laid out. Some questions though: If my natural wine is not up to the 10mg/25 mg (oh oh, two different allowable levels of "natural"? I see a potential problem there.)......can I then add sulphur up to those levels and still be called natural?

Then again, in the last specific, I see the "IF" and "MOST" quibbles. Most could be "some" couldn't it? How could natural be one and the other? And still be "natural"????

I'd like to say these definitions and rules help.....but I can't.

I have no problem whatsoever (and indeed, hold a great deal of appreciation and respect for) a winemaker who says "I would like to make my wine in such a method that I can make it I feel it is less manipulated than conventional wines, and I'm willing to put myself on the line to do so." I have no respect, however, for a winemaker, and much less an importer who is nakedly using that as a blatant marketing and sales technique while criticizing others for using their marketing techniques as being charlatans and liars, who lifts his nose up in the air and says "MY wine is natural, and yours is un-natural."

And "journalists", as they like to call themselves when they are merely pushing what they are enthusiastic about (as if they were somehow ennobled by pushing one type of wine over another)? Not much room left to think about them at all, and none of it charitable, I'm afraid.

Don't eat corn (maize if you prefer) if you are squeamish about GM products! Those ancient Americans had it all over genetic mutation.

James, you got that right. Those ancients knew them them some genetic manipulation stuff, they did.

And you know what: I don't think a single one of those guys had one moral or ethical qualm about what they were doing. Not like they held a lot of symposiums on the subject back then...

Indeed we humans are "natural" but only at the moment of birth...

Says who?

I have to agree with Steve here, your distinction seems arbitrary.

Clearly one can distinguish between animals and humans using language, but natural can also be used in other ways, such as to distinguish the physical/natural world from the spiritual world.

But I think we can all agree that the term is painfully vague and definitions are always going to depend on the specific question at hand. So we shouldn't focus on the word. Instead, how about focusing on the wine!

This video gives a humorous take on the whole trend:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UXlL0FIF9Q&feature=player_embedded#!

Steve and Rahsaan, Hi....

My laying the "blame" on the cerebral cortex relies more on biology than psychology. It is precisely the complex cerebral cortex of humans that gives us the ability not only to use language but to pass on complex knowledge from generation to generation and with that knowledge the passing on not only of tradition but of the desire not to re-invent but to improve on earlier knowledge.

I am far from saying that we humans are not animals, for indeed we are part of the animal world. Other animals, however, rely on complex sets of reflexes (some call those "instincts") while human advancement relies on building on and expanding the existing. Every swallow who has ever built a nest has built exactly the same nest as every swallow who has ever come before it. None, for example, has ever considered the possibility hanging a photograph of his relatives in his nest. No stork has ever nor ever will heat their nest to avoid that rather troublesome migration of 5,000 kilometers annually. No elephant has ever nor ever will be concerned with Goedell's theorum. Nor, thankfully, has any porpoise ever developed a nuclear bomb the purpose of which is to kill large numbers of other porpoises or, for that matter, the fishermen who trap them in their nets.

More critical to the issue at hand, no animal other than a human has ever conducted a series of controlled studies to determine how to make wine "better". Indeed, for example, wild boars adore Chardonnay grapes that have fallen to the ground and fermented spontaneously. Not one of those boars has ever considered speeding the process up by crushing the grapes, allowing them to ferment under controlled circustances and thus making wine that will be more pleasing to the palate.

As a somewhat odd side note, there are few things more amusing than wandering into a vineyard during the very early hours and seen a few drunken wild boars romping and belching loudly there.

Best
Rogov

Even so Daniel, those “complex reflexes” and “instincts” are still deeply imbedded in every one of us.

Salute

Even so Daniel, those “complex reflexes” and “instincts” are still deeply imbedded in every one of us.

As to complex reflexes, I will agree with you, but the cerebral cortex of man allow us to overcome the sequences and outcomes of those complex reflexes. The complex reflex, unlike the knee jerk, relies on an entire series of inborn or early imprinted activities that culminate in a certain kind of behavior (e.g. nesting). Even after the houses in Levittown were built one identical to the other, the first thing people did was to add individuating touches to each and every home.

As to whether human beings have instincts or not, a related discussion but let us remember that by definition an instinct cannot be denied without destroying the animal involved (e.g. the stork that does not migrate freezes to death). Some have proposed as instincts for humans survival and reproduction. Alas, that we humans have no instinct for survival is demonstrated both in war and in suicides. No animal other than a human has ever suicided. (Should you care to use the lemmings as an example, I will counter that).

Please do note that in all of this, I am not placing humankind above other animals. Nor am I resorting to the Biblical notion that we have "dominion over" the animals. What I am saying is that even though we humans are animals we are in several critically important ways, different than the others.

Best
Rogov

What does the difference between humans and other animals have to do with the definition of natural?

I could go on at great length about the difference between animals and minerals, but that too would have nothing to do with the definition of natural!

nat·u·ral [ náchərəl, náchrəl ]

adjective
Definition:

1. of nature: relating to nature
natural history

2. conforming with nature: in accordance with the usual course of nature
natural signs of aging

3. produced by nature: present in or produced by nature, not artificial or synthetic
a natural sapphire

4. of physical world: relating to the physical rather than the spiritual world
striking natural features

5. like human nature: in accordance with human nature
It's only natural that they should want to be independent.

6. innate: inborn, rather than acquired
lots of natural charm

7. being something by nature: having a particular character by nature
a natural leader

8. not affected: behaving in a sincere and unaffected way and not affected or adopted for a special purpose
a natural manner

9. like real life: representing something in a way that seems true to life

10. biological: related by blood, rather than adoption
her natural mother

11. not sharp or flat: describes a note in music that is neither sharp nor flat

12. without sharps or flats: describes a musical key or scale containing no sharps or flats

13. without joker or wild card: not made using a joker or a wild card
a natural flush

14. illegitimate: born of unmarried parents ( archaic )
a natural child

Rahsaan, Hi....

Not to belabor the point but points 1, 2, 3 and 6 apply both to human beings and to wine.

1. of nature: relating to nature

"Nature" per se built neither the Empire State Building nor the Pyramids. Nor did nature build either the stainless steel tanks or the oak barrels in which we age wine.

2. conforming with nature: in accordance with the usual course of nature

I cannot help but wonder (and indeed there is disagreement on this point) whether nature meant for humans to take part in that activity that from time to time has us marching off to war for the sole purpose of killing large numbers of our brothers and sisters or if that is an activity "invented" by the more perverse needs of man. As to wine, the "usual course of nature" would have us eat grapes and not to make wine at all.


3. produced by nature: present in or produced by nature, not artificial or synthetic

Nature" (in this case genetics) gave us the potential to be intelligent or the potential to develop schizophrenia. In both cases, however, it is nurture (that is to say, the environment) that allows those potentials to be met. In the case of wine, nature gave us various varieties of grapes but it took the intervention of man to learn how to graft rootstock, and to produce hybrids.

I am truly not trying to be ornery in this discussion. Bottom line is that because of human intervention I cannot conceive of a wine that is "natural". I realize that some of my arguments may go against the grain but I do hold them to be realities. In that, of course, I freely admit that I remain open to being proven wrong.

Best
Rogov

Bottom line is that because of human intervention I cannot conceive of a wine that is "natural".

I tend to agree and don't find the term very useful. But as in the cartoon clip I linked above, I don't think we need to get hung up on the terms and precise definitions. This is not science. Moreover, the 13 different definitions I posted above also suggest that the term 'natural' is so broad that it can be interpreted many different ways.

So instead of arguing across different definitions, it seems to be more interesting to have conversations about the actual techniques. What do people think about sulfur, yeasts, carbonic maceration, hang time, green harvesting, etc, etc. Instead of getting bogged down in the nomenclature.