I am often asked, "what is natural wine?". My first instinct would be to decline the question, but then I feel bound to provide an answer and – despite my best efforts – the innocent asker is faced with a rather elaborate reply, especially if my counterpart is not a total newbie to the subject. Here I will try to be as concise as possible, and to only provide some general information without delving into the technicalities.
First of all, I must make it clear that by law, we cannot write "natural wine" on the bottle label, because this might cause buyers to think that other wines are not "natural", and this would make us legally prosecutable… However, expressing one's idea on "natural wine" seems perfectly acceptable. Among vintners, consumers, associations, bloggers, critics and so on, there are countless ways to describe, qualify and even come up with production guidelines for "natural wine". These positions are often incompatible, sometimes even on principle.
Some firmly declare that there is no such thing as "natural wine" and that good wines cannot be made without utilizing chemistry and physics. When they hear of a wine defined as "natural", they immediately start looking for defects to challenge the producer. Others claim, with fairly different positions, that "natural wine" can be made using the various techniques and chemical products allowed by the EU laws on organic winemaking. Others still reject the laws on organic wine but accept individual or combined procedures such as light filtration, low amounts of sulphur, selected (but strictly GMO-free!) yeasts, etc. Finally, as a rule, certification authorities and most vintner associations refrain from officially using the term "natural wine", which on the other hand is much liked by individual winemakers.
As far as I am concerned, and also according to the majority of those who declare themselves producers of "natural wine", the grapes must come from vineyards where pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilizers are not used; besides, the vinification process must be performed without added chemicals (including sulphites), without physical treatments and without filtration.
During our wine tastings, sometimes people remark: "I see: it's like grandpa's wine…". Well, not quite! There is a huge difference between "natural wine" and our grandparent's wines – not least due to the cleanliness of our cellars, our careful choice of grape varieties, the way we pick the right time to harvest, today's wine containers and all the knowledge we have acquired in the field.