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[email protected] oli@morethanorganic.com is offline
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Default 'Natural wine' ?


> http://www.morethanorganic.computs quite a good case for the
> difference between 'natural' and 'organic' wines, but I can't help
> feeling it's just smart way of selling their product.


We're not yet selling a product, although we do intend to start to
start importing later this year. At the moment the site is purely
informational. You can find our position on 'natural wine' as a term
in the section 'Wine terminology' (http://www.morethanorganic.com/wine-
terminology).

Obviously, we don't agree with the 'vinegar' argument, principally
because, as Joe Dressner points out, there is a group of winemakers
within France who describe themselves in this way, as well as cavistes
and restaurants who specialise in 'vin naturel'. They even have a
website (http://www.lesvinsnaturels.org/). We need a way to describe
these wines in English and 'natural wine' seems like the most sensible
translation. I suppose another option would be to adopt the French
term. Dressner himself prefers 'real wine' I think.

The other reason the term is useful, within the EU at least, is the
mess the law is currently in over organic and biodynamic wine.
Winemakers have effectively been forced to find an alternative because
the term 'organic wine' is illegal and the term 'wine made from
organically grown grapes' is not strict enough. There are plenty of
wines made industrially from organically grown grapes.

A bigger problem is agreeing exactly what qualifies as 'natural wine'.
Until that's done, you can't get a system of certfication running. Our
attempt at a definition is here (http://www.morethanorganic.com/
definition-of-natural-wine) but it should be seen as just that, an
attempt. There's another one, fairly similar, on wikipedia (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_wine).

Incidentally, how did you find morethanorganic ? It's only about a
month old and is still teething really. Nor is it set in stone, so any
feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Oliver Morgan
http://www.morethanorganic.com/