Doin’ What Comes Naturally

There’s no official definition for natural wines and certainly no regulatory body connected to them, so it tends to be a loose description. For us, we look for wines that have been made with minimal chemical intervention in either the vineyard or the cellar.

Natural wines are, at least organic — made from grapes grown with no artificial pesticides or fertilizers — and are often biodynamic. Mostly likely fermenting with ambient yeasts, natural winemakers also avoid additives during vinification, leaving their wine either unfined, unfiltered, or both and using little or no sulfur even as a preservative.

Advocates of natural wines applaud how organic and biodynamic growing practices are gentler on the soil and lead to more sustainable and ecologically supportive stewardship of the land. They also believe that natural winemaking gives you a more authentic wine that preserves the beneficial compounds and antioxidants in the grapes.

Whether or not there’s such a thing as a “more authentic wine,” natural winemaking is responsible for some very exciting wines, and, more and more, it’s rarely a bad thing to support sustainability projects.

Please join us this Wine Wednesday when guest pourer Michael Smith from Native Selections, takes us through a small flight of natural wines. This is a free walk-up tasting, so all you have to lose is your taste for boring wine.