Don't miss David's other editions of the VinTrends column.
As with most marketing terms, the recent rise of “natural” as a wine category is a nebulously defined one, and therefore subject to misapplication and misunderstanding. Its earliest iterations included many carelessly made, foul-tasting wines.
With growing consumer interest, over time, those with more sense and sensibility stepped into the fray to make them, helping these vintners to learn that while oxidation and bacterial infection may indeed be “natural,” they were unpalatable and needn’t be. This, and accepting that the judicious addition of sulfites as a preservative isn’t inherently evil, especially that it’s estimated only 1 in 300 people possess a sensitivity to it.
In an effort to create some real understanding of the subject, I brought together for an episode of my Drinking on the Edge podcast three California vintners: Steve Matthiasson of Matthiasson Wines; Raj Parr of Phelan Farm; and Jared Brandt of Donkey and Goat; and three of your Bar and Restaurant peers: Jesse Kirkpatrick of Atlanta's Elemental Spirits; Femi Oyediran of Charleston's Graft Wine Shop; and Nik Wells of Chicago's Webster Wine Bar.
I enjoyed Matthiasson’s Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (stocked at Elemental) a few days before our meeting. Tasting it again during the meeting, it showed nearly no change in its firm structure, flavors, or aromas. Upon opening, Parr’s Autrement red blend was almost delicate and turned in on itself, opening fully after a few days. I also enjoyed Brandt’s Lily's Sparkling Anderson Valley Chardonnay, the U.S.’s first Pét-nat (basically, natural sparkling wine).
When queried about what differentiates a natural and an unnatural wine, Kirkpatrick responded, “We prioritize conscious farming for a more sustainable future, and in the cellar not overmanipulating.”
Kirkpatrick claims her Atlanta audience to be engaged and curious, “but there's not a lot of information widely available at the consumer level about this topic that will allow them all of the tools that they need to navigate that whole conversation.”
Though she says 80% of her stock falls into the natural category, “sometimes that takes wines to a price point that does not fit for everybody.”
For the circa 1994 Webster Wine Bar, Wells tries to deviate from using the word “natural” and instead focus on farming practices and the use of systemic chemicals.
Oyediran says his experience and increased exposure to “wines that were of a certain ilk of organic farming with a culture of freshness in doing things that we think is very consistent,” helped lend his hybrid retail/on-premise operation legitimacy. “There's a confidence my customers get when they come into my store because they know these are the considerations I've made of the lines we represent,” he says.
Vintner Brandt prioritized “taking care, improving, and trying not to pollute the land and taking care of the people that are helping us tend the grapes, helping them rise and follow their dreams, and making wines using traditional techniques without lots of additives.”
Parr emphasizes restraint in ripeness levels and extraction intensity as part of the general ethos of natural wines, which comes as no surprise since his Phelan Farm focuses upon regenerative agriculture. Parr said it ought to be “wine from organic vineyards at minimum, preferably from soils with an abundance of living microbes, and then made without any additives except sulfur.”
When I mentioned that over 70 additives generally recognized as safe (GRAS) are allowed by the U.S. federal government to be added to wine in its making, the UC-Davis organic viticulture teacher Matthiasson chimed in. “Most of these things are pretty innocuous, a grape concentrate isn’t unhealthy but just not aesthetically and ideologically something we want because we're very proud of our fruit,” he said, also attesting that organic vineyards are more resilient and require less irrigation. “There's a lot of agricultural chemicals I would like to see go away, that's why we keep talking about organic as being the important part of natural wine, and then what choices you made as a winemaker about how you want to express the beauty of the fruit.”
With a client list that includes Antinori, Araujo, Chappellet, Dalla Valle, Spottswoode, Stag's Leap Cellars, Matthiasson reckons, “They're making wine at a very high level and believe that with organic farming, the fruit's going to be better quality and require less work in the cellar.”
Brandt thinks Pét-nat is “a good entry point for people exploring the natural wine world…and one of the wines that I've successfully consistently made with no added sulfur.”
Wells says Pét-nat was even trending not too long ago, “Pét-nat was definitely once a trend at Webster's,” he says. “I don't even know if people really understood what they were ordering…like the orange wine movement can be sometimes, but that's definitely dropped off.”
One thing Kirkpatrick would like to see “drop off” is the strict viewpoints of some in the natural wine industry. “I feel like the ‘natural’ conversation can be a little bit too dogmatic,” she said. “I think we fret over things that are not necessarily important. I'll never advocate for Champagne to disappear because there's a little bit of added yeast.”
Since 1986, David Furer has served in the on- and off-premise trenches in his native U.S. and former adoptive homes of Great Britain and Germany; directed & hosted international wine business conferences in Europe, Asia, and online concerned with its future and climate change; and contributed to wines & spirits media outlets in the U.S. and Great Britain. He also provides marketing & communications expertise to organizations throughout the world from his New York home while somehow finding time to host the consumer-facing podcast Drinking on the Edge. You can reach him at rerufd@gmail.com.
Vibe Conference 2025 will take place March 3-5, 2025 at Town & Country Resort in San Diego, California.
Contact us now to secure your program for the 2025 Vibe Conference:
Donna Bruns, Sales & Sponsorships, (for companies A-L), Email: donna@vibeconference.com Phone: 936-522-6932
Fadi Alsayegh, Sales & Sponsorships, (for companies M-Z), Email: falsayegh@questex.com Phone: 440-454-0239
Connect and follow Questex’s Vibe Conference and community at Facebook and LinkedIn.