Natural wines: the backlash

It's inevitable given the amount of publicity that's been accorded to natural wines lately that some will be less enraptured than others. This latest post from wine writer Quentin Sadler being typical of the sceptics' position.

I haven't got time for a considered response today but two quick points.

The term 'natural' I agree does have its downside. It puts up the back of conscientious winemakers who don't choose to engage with any certification scheme but still make good wines, with care. But it engages the public in a way that 'organic' alone never did. And it's easy to get bogged down in semantics.

Finding wines you don't like at a tasting is normal. Every tasting I go to that happens to me - conventional wines as well as natural ones. So I don't think that makes natural wines especially unreliable.

I'll return to all of this when I have a moment