Food

12 Natural Wines to Drink Now

As polarizing as natural wine has been, as heated and contentious as the arguments have gotten over its name and its reasons for being, its audience continues to expand, as do the number of producers.

Recently, I went shopping online for natural wines and found a dozen that are a pleasure to recommend. I might have included twice that many as I found bottles everywhere and from all over. The 12 I recommend are from New York, California, Australia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy and France.

Among natural wine’s growing audience, some have surely been attracted because they think it’s fashionable. Others are curious about wines made outside the norm, wines that combine a respect for nature with traditional methods of production and that both taste and feel really good.

Regardless of the initial allure, for many the appeal has lasted. Most striking is how popular natural wine seems to be among younger people, the demographic that the mainstream wine industry has the most difficulty reaching.

But though the number of producers has grown, the production of natural wine is necessarily small and labor intensive.

The ethos of the genre is to farm organically; to ferment the grapes while adding nothing except, perhaps, a little sulfur dioxide, an antioxidant and stabilizer that has long been used in wine; and to remove nothing. It is a hands-on process that cannot be automated or mechanized for efficiency’s sake.

Natural wine is ultimately an ideal that producers aim for, but are not always able to meet. So it is fitting that these winemakers’ intentions are idealistic. Whether their objective is to work in harmony with nature rather than exploiting it, to preserve local traditions and culture or simply to make the best-tasting wine for themselves and their customers, the wines and the production principles take precedence over profits.

In mass-market winemaking, wine must be protected against possible spoilage during every step of the production process. The cultured yeast, the enzymes and the overuse of sulfur dioxide are all compromises aimed at protecting the investment.

By contrast, natural winemaking is risky. It requires meticulous care in both the vineyard and the cellar as overly casual viticulture or winemaking can doom a batch of wine. To look at it another way, making natural wine requires great skill because mistakes can’t be undone with additions or technology.

It’s an arduous task, but the results can be thrilling.

This is not to say that people should drink only natural wine. An entire spectrum of methods and intentions exists between the poles of natural and industrial, and consumers have their reasons for selecting what they like, whether preference, convenience or budget.

I’m drawn to natural wines because I love the unmediated flavors and expressions that come from grape to glass. I love the clear sense of place I often find and being able to sense the personalities of the producers in the glass. I’m moved by the respect for culture and tradition inherent in natural wine.

This last point is important. Natural wine producers in historic regions are largely responsible for rediscovering and protecting local grapes and styles, which, if bureaucrats and powerful critics had their way, might have disappeared. Instead, we have the diversity of grapes and styles that is the joy of wine culture today.

I’m not blindly devoted to natural wines. Certain flaws occur that I don’t see in more mainstream bottles, like mousiness, an odd quality reminiscent of cedar shavings in mouse cages that can only be sensed retronasally, after the wine has been in the mouth.

I found a few mousy bottles in this batch and did not include them among the 12 bottles, just as I would not recommend unbalanced or insipid wines, flaws more typical of mainstream labels.

Because it is so laborious and personal to produce, natural wine is hard to scale up. It is necessarily made in small quantities, so these wines may only be available in certain parts of the country.

One characteristic of natural wine culture is to question authority, including that of wine critics. So, even if you do find these bottles, feel free to experiment, to try other others. Good wine shops ought to at least have a small selection, so ask for suggestions and make your own discoveries.

Here are my 12 recommendations, from lowest to highest price.