The Esquire Guide To Natural Wine (Plus 8 Bottles You Need To Know About)

Whether you love it or loathe it, the natural wine boom is not ending any time soon. Just like the clean eating vogue has seen us shun foods full of additives and ingredients you can't pronounce, the natural wine movement is all about virtuoso quaffing of fermented grape juices that are made with as little meddling as possible.

It can feel like rewiring your palette if you're not used to it, but for all of its jargon the world of natty wine isn't as intimidating or impenetrable as it might appear...

Best natural wine to drink in 2023

What is natural wine?

"The way that we sum it up is that it’s wine made without industrial agriculture and without any extreme uses of pesticides or chemicals in the vineyard," says Brodie Meah, owner of the restaurant, wine shop and bar Top Cuvée, who rebranded as Shop Cuvée at the start of lockdown in order to offer takeaway and delivery on bottles. "It's wine made with as little manipulation or intervention in the winery as possible, so in a natural way."

A lot of natural wines are juicy, light, slightly fizzy grapes that are best enjoyed cold. They're also easy to drink over longer periods of time, or 'smashable', as the natural wine world calls these kinds of drinks.

"A term you hear in reference to natural wine is juice, or ‘glou glou’ [French for glug glug]. These are wines made in a way that’s really fresh, great to be drunk young and with a little bit of fizz," Meah says. "More conventional wines like big reds or robust full-bodied white wines lend themselves well to ageing, which is great in certain circumstances but having a BBQ is probably not one of them."

What types of natural wine are there?

One of the biggest reasons for the rise of the natural wine trend is the explosion of orange wine, so much so that even supermarkets are getting in on the action. Orange wine comes from leaving the skins in contact with the juice, so that the grapes macerate and the wine takes on a funky taste and colour.

There's also pét nat, an abbreviation of 'pétillant naturel', which are fizzy natural wines made for drinking in the sunshine. A lot of natural wine has a hint of carbonation to it without necessarily being a pét nat, but these are the funky younger sisters of champagne, and at a friendlier price point, too.

Fresh, light reds which are best served chilled are also making waves, and are ideal for enjoying in the warmer weather. Not just any red grape is suited to being served chilled, so it's best to avoid things with lots of tannins and go for bottles which are juicy and fruit-forward, like gamay or Austrian grapes like zweigelt and blaufränkisch.

While pale Provence rosé has been the reigning drink of the summer for years, natural rosé and rosato grapes, which are juicier and darker, have cultivated a huge following of late, with many blurring the lines between red and rosé, and others being made by mixing red and white grapes for some neon hues.

Why is everyone suddenly drinking natural wine?

Because it's cool! No really, a lot of the popularity of natural wine has been put down to it being the next trendy fad coming out of restaurants where they write “cheeseburger, £24” on your paper tablecloth in lieu of a menu. But in many parts of the world, natural wine-making has a rich heritage. Take for example the orange wines that have been coming out of Georgia since 6000 BC.

In cities across Europe, the UK, America and Australia, natural wine culture has a similar scene to that of the craft beer world a few years ago. Natural wine is made by small, often independent growers, meaning that there is limited production and a scarcity of bottles on offer. A bottle you love might be one you can never track down again, making it feel more exciting than the same bottle of malbec which will always taste the same and be available by the box.

How we test natural wine

We selected 36 natural, organic and orange wines of varying grape types and prices, and laid them out before our trusted panel of experts and consumer boozehounds. Each was fully appraised for its complexity, length and finish, with in-depth discussions on how best to serve.

Read on for their eight favourite natural drops for 2023...