What is Natural Wine?!?

(The short answer: grapes, and not much else.)

Walk into a bar in Paris, Amsterdam or Copenhagen and order a glass of natural wine, and you’ll notice something’s off in the best way. The wine might be cloudy, smell a little wild, or taste fresher than anything you’ve had before. Natural wine feels alive. But what does “natural” really mean?

The Basics

Natural wine is made from organic or biodynamic grapes, always harvested by hand. Instead of lab-made yeasts, fermentation happens with the wild yeasts that live on the grapes and in the cellar. Nothing extra is added, nothing unnecessary is taken away.

What’s Left Out

Conventional wines can be tweaked with dozens of hidden additives: stabilizers, coloring agents, commercial yeasts, even powdered tannins to fake structure. Natural winemakers avoid all of that. Some add a touch of sulfur to keep the wine stable, but many don’t. The point is transparency. What’s in your glass is the vineyard, not a chemistry set.

Why It Matters

This isn’t just about taste. It’s a way of working that respects the land and the grape. No pesticides, no synthetic fertilizers, no industrial shortcuts. For drinkers it means bottles that are closer to the vineyard: raw, expressive, and sometimes unpredictable.

What to Expect

Natural wine isn’t about the perfect wine. It can be hazy, a little fizzy, or taste different from bottle to bottle. Sometimes it leans funky, sometimes it’s pure fruit. The quirks are part of the experience. You are drinking something real, not a factory product.

Why We Care

At Amigos del Vino, natural wine is more than a category. It’s the feeling of long nights with friends, of discovering bottles that surprise you, of finding honesty in what you drink. It’s not about prestige or rules. It’s about keeping wine human and keeping it fun.