Why Natural Wine?

Before we explain why we chose natural wine (also referred to as low or minimal intervention wine) let's define what natural wine really is at this moment.

In 2020, the French government became the first and only to create an official certification dubbed vin méthode nature, that can be used to label natural wine made in France. They defined natural wine made in France as: grapes which must carry organic certification, be hand-picked and fermented using indigenous/native yeasts.

Here, at Unfined Wines, we define natural wine similarly; Hand-harvesting of the grapes in the vineyard, never machine harvesting (no bruised grapes here!); Allowing the native/indigenous yeast found naturally occurring within the organic vineyard or winemaking facility to do the work and ferment the wines - no use of lab created yeasts or organic yeast packets that may not come from the same place as where the grapes were picked (that's not authentic!); no use of new oak barrels to ferment the wine and impart oaky flavors that don't allow for true expression of the grape (you won't find "woodsy" wines here!); Minimal-to-no use of filtering and fining the wine, employing only vegan friendly processes; Using very little-to-no additional sulfur (way less than what even biodynamic certifications limit) when needed to keep the wine from spoiling (sulfur occurs naturally in all wines during fermentation as a byproduct, in tiny quantity, that sometimes isn't enough to save the wine from going bad); and lastly, there are NO EXCEPTIONS to using additives/chemicals (even those approved by USDA or Biodynamic wine certifications) because again, wine should not be manipulated in order to taste the true character of where the wine comes from!

Some of the biggest differences between conventional wine and natural wine are below. When we learned more about natural wine, it was a no-brainer. We've been sipping clean ever since.

There are many more benefits to drinking natural wine, but at the core, the 4 points above are our biggest deterrents to conventional wine. Some others include, much less sugar - natural wine only contains sugar produced naturally by the grapes, nothing added to manipulate taste. It is also said by many that they don't get the headaches or hangovers that they do with conventional wine, but we'll let you figure that one out. 

At Unfined Wines, we believe wine should be an extension of the organic and healthy food that you put in your stomach, your farm-to-table. Why drink wine with artificial ingredients that has been technologically manipulated. We decided  to dedicate our time to advocate for natural wine and hand-pick wine that meets higher standards. We want you to taste the difference. We want you to feel better. We want you to support wine makers that care about the environment and what goes into your body. This is how wine making used to be before it became commercialized in the 1960s. 60 years later, we are more conscious about what goes into our bodies and how we treat our environment, we are going back to the roots of our ancestors and bringing back wine that’s made better, for you. We taste every wine we hand-pick for you, backed by countless hours of research to ensure they meets our standards.

What we love the most about natural wine is that every bottle has its own persona, unlike most conventional wine whose taste has been streamlined through chemical intervention, just as in the world of fast food. Every natural wine bottle induces an emotional reaction and tells the story of where it came from (terroir) with a much more complex flavor profile. We believe you don’t need fancy wine terms or be a wine expert to drink natural wine. For us, it's about approachability, you shouldn’t feel intimidated to ask questions or feel like you have to drink it in a certain way, we are here to make the process easy with wines that are easy. There are no rules, you define your own rules.