Having visited Vini Veri, “Vino Vino Vino” in Verona<\/a> earlier this year, I saw this trend in full swing.\u00a0 Lots and lots of “natural” wines, many of which were not in my opinion well-made. Others didn’t fit my definition of natural.<\/p>\n I will begin with my definition of a natural wine:<\/p>\n A natural wine should be made first and foremost<\/strong> by a winemaker who has the right attitude and philosophy. It matters little to me whether or not the winemaker is certified organic or recognized by Demeter as biodynamic. I am not excluding these winemakers here, merely stating that getting certified or recognized by Demeter is sometimes not possible\u00a0 due to vineyard treatments by neighbors or is sought out for the wrong reasons, like marketing rights or government subsidies.\u00a0 Therefore, I feel that it is more important that the winemaker understands natural wine making and has the correct philosophy. The wine-maker wants to do the right thing.\u00a0 It’s not important to me that the label states that the wine is biodynamic or organic.<\/p>\n Second<\/strong>, natural winemakers should never use pesticides in the vineyards. They should work as naturally as possible in the vineyards which can include green harvesting and canopy management.\u00a0 It can include other measures to insure healthy plants which should in turn produce healthy grapes. They should even limit natural fertilizers whenever possible.\u00a0 Biodiversity should be encouraged, not destroyed.<\/p>\n Wild boar footprints in the Roagna vineyards suggesting biodiversity - photo by Vinosseur<\/p><\/div>\n \n Third<\/strong>, the\u00a0 grapes should be harvested by hand and not machine.\u00a0 Hand selection of fully ripe and healthy grapes is an important step in producing a great wine.<\/p>\n Fourth<\/strong>, the grapes should then be crushed and left to macerate on the skins for an extended period of time before pressing to help stabilize the wine and preserve the wine once bottled.\u00a0 This statement is not from personal wine-making experience but from my reading and talking to respected wine-makers.\u00a0 Most of the natural wines I have tasted have had extended skin contact for the above mentioned reasons.<\/p>\n Fifth<\/strong>, the grapes should ferment with indigenous (wild) yeasts, not added (selected) yeasts.\u00a0 Healthy grapes will have these indigenous yeasts on their skins.\u00a0 I do feel however, that it’s ok to add a natural\/neutral yeast to start the fermentation process if it does not commence on its own.\u00a0 Natural wine makers whom I respect, have the right philosophy and work as naturally as possible have had to do this on occasion.<\/p>\n Six<\/strong>, the fermentation should take place without any artificial temperature control. Of course\u00a0 the wine-maker may chose an ideal place to ferment the wine. If you are doing this in the cellar where the average temperature is quite constant, this is a sort of “temperature control”, and is ok in my opinion.<\/p>\n Grapes macerating in Amphorae. Photo courtesy of Doug Wregg of Les Caves de Pyrene<\/p><\/div>\n Seven<\/strong>, “oak” (barriques) should not be used.\u00a0 When I speak of oak, I am referring to barrels smaller than 600 liters. Of course, it also depends on the age of the barrel. If the barrel is only 200 liters but is 100 years old, I suppose that there will be no influence on the wine except for the exchange of oxygen, and this is ok.\u00a0 Oak, especially new, adds unwanted elements (flavors) to the wine and also softens tannins,\u00a0 for these reasons I don’t think a wine is natural if it’s been fermented or stored in oak.\u00a0 I want to clarify one thing here to those who might be reading this and thinking “this guy obviously hates oak”.\u00a0 The point of this rule is that I am against the use of oak in natural wine because although oak comes from trees and in and of itself is a natural product, the oak is then toasted. Once the wine comes into contact with this finished barrel, the wine changes. I personally feel that this is completely unnatural. So, for my definition of natural wine, I feel that other fermentation\/storage mediums should be used, like cement, amphorae, steel etc.<\/p>\n Eight<\/strong>, a natural wine should be neither fined nor filtered before bottling.\u00a0 This in my opinion is an important rule. Why take anything from the wine?<\/p>\n Nine<\/strong>, a natural wine should not have any added<\/strong> sulfur. This is probably the most controversial point.\u00a0 Many producers are adding only 10 or 12 mg of sulfur (10-12 ppm) at bottling, and I am grateful that less and less sulfur is being added to wine, but adding sulfur is not natural and therefore for me to consider a wine completely natural, there can be no added sulfur. This being said, even a wine with no added sulfur will still contain sulfur since it is a by-product of fermentation.\u00a0 I also feel it important to mention that although in my definition of natural wine there can be no added sulfur, there are many great wine makers who add a few milligrams of sulfur at bottling and I enjoy these wines on a daily basis.<\/p>\n![\"european_logo_organic\"](\"http:\/\/vinosseur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/european_logo_organic.jpg\" "\\"european_logo_organic\\""){kind=logo}
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