As with any natural product, the term natural wine simply indicates that nothing artificial has been added to the grape growing or winemaking processes. Natural winemaking aims to express the essence of wine without interference, and it's up for interpretation.
Humans have intervened with wine to impact everything from flavor to appearance with conventional fining, filtering, degassing, and mass production. The elimination of manipulation is all about understanding and potentially appreciating what's not happening — viticulture free of herbicides and pesticides and winemaking free of the more than 50 additives, from synthetic yeast to liquid oak extract, approved for use in Europe and the U.S. Everything in natural wine occurs naturally, and the fermented grape juice is produced with traditional practices – the term may be trendy, but the methods are actually ancient.
