Wine culture guide
Natural wine is not a protected term. Anyone may use it, nobody has to prove anything. That is why so much nonsense gets written about it, and why this text exists.
The core is a simple idea: intervene as little as possible, in the vineyard and in the cellar. Outside that means no synthetic fertiliser, no herbicides, no synthetic pesticides. Inside it means spontaneous fermentation with the yeasts sitting on the grapes, no cultured yeast, no acid correction, no fining, little or no sulphur.
What comes out can be cloudy and show aromas you did not expect. Sometimes that is brilliant. Sometimes it is simply faulty.
We say that plainly, because it usually gets told differently: natural wine is not automatically good wine. We drink a lot of it and pour plenty away. What ends up in our range has passed the test.
White grapes vinified like red ones, meaning with the skins in the must instead of without. The method comes from Georgia and is a few thousand years old. The only new thing is that we are talking about it again in central Europe.
The skins give colour, from pale gold to amber, plus tannin and an aromatic range white wine otherwise does not have: dried apricot, nuts, herbs, sometimes something close to black tea. These are white wines with the body of a red, and they go with food that would overwhelm a normal white.
We carry a small selection of it. Attis makes the Sitta Maceración and the Doliola, Coto de Gomariz the Paxaradas, Verónica Romero the Muda from Tardana. That is not much, and it is deliberate.
Pétillant naturel is the oldest method for sparkling wine: the wine goes into the bottle before the first fermentation has finished and completes it there. No second fermentation, no dosage, no added sugar. Whatever happens, happens.
The result is usually slightly cloudy, always lively and rarely the same twice. Honestly, we currently do not have one that has convinced us. What we do carry in sparkling is classic bottle fermentation from Pago de Tharsys, Vera de Estenas and Can Rafols. Different method, same attitude.
Organic means no synthetic chemistry. Biodynamics goes further and additionally works with preparations from herbs and minerals, and with moon phases and calendars.
Part of that can be explained, part of it cannot. We stick to what we can see: Inma Pazos runs Coto de Gomariz in the Ribeiro biodynamically, with spontaneous fermentation and trials in clay amphorae. Her wines have become more precise. Whether that is down to the preparations or to the attention this way of working forces, we cannot say. The difference in the glass is there either way.
Between the vine rows grow herbs, wildflowers and legumes. They bring nitrogen into the soil and attract beneficial insects. Hedges and trees give birds and insects a habitat, and they in turn keep pests down. Sheep keep the grass short and fertilise while they are at it.
The point of this is not romance, it is resilience. A vineyard with a functioning environment takes drought and extreme weather better than a monoculture. With increasingly unpredictable summers that is a concrete advantage.
Algueira in the Ribeira Sacra works in a landscape that brings this with it anyway: steep terraces, forest in between, the river below. Nobody there needs to manufacture biodiversity, it is already present.
For a long time wine was the one food that had to declare neither ingredients nor nutrition. Only alcohol content and allergens. That has changed: since 8 December 2023 the EU requires an ingredient list and a nutrition declaration for wine. The energy value goes on the physical label, the rest may run via QR code, allergens stay visible on the bottle in any case.
For you that means: with a bottle from the EU you can now read what was used. Scan the code next time. The difference between an ingredient list with three entries and one with fifteen explains a lot.
We do not believe in dogma. Not every wine we sell is natural wine in the strict sense, and we have no interest in pretending otherwise.
What counts for us is whether someone takes their soil seriously, knows their varieties and is willing to work more for less yield. Whether a Demeter logo ends up on the bottle is beside the point for us. Certification costs money that is better spent in the vineyard on a four hectare estate.
Do not start with the most radical wine you can find. Take a Godello from a grower who ferments spontaneously but works cleanly. If you like that, go a step further to the Maceración from Attis. And if you like that too, we can keep talking.
Handverlesene Weine aus den Regionen, die wir in diesem Artikel vorstellen – direkt aus der Schweiz bestellen.
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