Wine myths
Natural wine has nothing added and is a defined category
“Natural wine is legally defined and has nothing added to it.”
In most jurisdictions "natural wine" has no legal definition at all. Certification schemes exist and vary, and the terms natural, organic, biodynamic, unfined and unfiltered are not synonyms.
The full answer
Organic and biodynamic are certified categories with published standards and inspections. Natural wine, in most of the world, is not — there is no general legal definition and no universal enforcement.
France is the main exception in scale: the Vin Méthode Nature charter, recognised there since 2020, sets out specific conditions including hand harvesting, organic fruit, indigenous yeasts and strict limits on added sulfur dioxide. It is a voluntary charter rather than a general legal category, and it applies where it applies.
The individual terms are routinely conflated and mean different things. Organic concerns what happens in the vineyard. Biodynamic adds a further set of practices. Unfined and unfiltered describe two specific and separable clarification decisions. "No added sulfites" is narrower still.
A wine can be any combination of these. Organic and heavily sulfured; unfiltered and conventionally farmed; natural and, in some interpretations, permitted a small sulfur addition at bottling.
WineHQ takes no position on whether these wines are better. It takes a firm position on the terms meaning different things and on labels being read for what they actually say.
There is a real and coherent movement here with genuine shared commitments, and the best of these wines are made with enormous care.
What producers in a particular place conventionally do. Distinct from a regulated requirement: convention is what happens, regulation is what is compulsory, and confusing the two is one of the commonest errors in regional wine writing.
What would settle it: Documented practice in the region diverging from the stated convention.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 — Common Organisation of Agricultural Markets — European Union
- The Oxford Companion to Wine — Oxford University Press
- Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO) — INAO, France