The Actual Facts Behind the Rise of Natural Wine

(WSJ) - "Natural" is a small but growing category in wine, signaling biodynamic, organic or vegan winemaking practices. But Lettie Teague wonders: Is the movement about taste or just ideology?

WILLIAM JAMES was not only a famous philosopher but a source of some pretty memorable quotes. One of his better-known observations, "Belief creates the actual fact," came to mind recently as I was researching the topic of natural wine. When I asked wine professionals to define the term, each gave a different reply. Natural wine, it would seem, has a lot more to do with individual belief than it does with incontrovertible fact.

Although the number of natural wines in the world is relatively small, the topic has loomed large in recent years. It may be one of the most controversial in the wine world, with strong feelings expressed by partisans of both the "natural" and the not. Natural-wine proponents describe their wines as "pure" and "kind to the planet" and other wines as "industrial" or worse, while non-naturalists have likened their natural counterparts to cult members.

The term "natural wine" is fairly new, at least in terms of general parlance. According to Alice Feiring, a natural-wine authority, one of its champions was famed Beaujolais producer Marcel Lapierre, who, along with his compatriots, began using the term about 10 years ago after adopting the teachings of the late French chemist/winemaker Jules Chauvet.