Additive-free wine finding favour with Australian producers, consumers

(ABC) - So-called "natural wines" may be finding favour in Australian bars and restaurants, but the term rankles many in the industry.

"It infers the rest of us are indulging in unnatural winemaking, which is not so," said John Rymill from Rymill Wines in South Australia's Coonawarra region.

While there is no official definition, "natural" wine is generally understood to contain no added acid or yeast and less sulphur dioxide than more conventionally made wine, and it is often unclarified.

Followers of this approach are also described as minimal intervention winemakers.

"If it gets people interested in wine who might not otherwise be interested, you cannot argue against that being a good thing," said Australia's most prominent wine writer James Halliday.

"The worry is of course that people will try a natural wine as their first encounter and will run away shrieking in horror at what's been put in their mouth." James Halliday tastes around 9000 wines a year and is a little sceptical about the less is more approach.

"The converts to the arch high priests of natural wine really love these things that are hissing and breaking wind and look murky in the glass and taste murky in the mouth and the murkier they are the better they are," said Mr Halliday.

But sommelier at Melbourne's acclaimed Attica restaurant Banjo Harris Plane says they offer a flavour and texture, not found in more conventionally made wine.