The Wild World of Natural Wines

What are natural wines? Where can you find them? Polly Rappaport explores the growing popularity and availability of natural wines in the Southside.

Photography: Audrey Bizouerne

By Polly Rappaport

“OK, but… what is natural wine?” asks the second, or possibly third person in the online bartering group where I’m attempting to transform a couple of bottles of conventionally produced Brut into something much more exciting.

It’s a good question. Natural wine doesn’t have an official definition, but characteristics include grapes that are grown organic or biodynamically, hand-picked, naturally fermented with no additives (bar a dash of preservative sulfites at bottling, though some eschew this measure) and very light, if any, filtration. The whole process is low-to-no intervention, and the result is a living wine, full of kaleidoscopic flavours and engrossing textures, many brimming with fruit flavours that makes them helplessly gluggable. A frequently easy drinker you might have heard of is orange wine, or ‘skin-contact’ white wine, which gets its colour from the grapes and their skins spending some quality time together in the fermentation vessel. The novelty of the colour, joining the traditional red, white and pink, has drawn interest and made orange a common gateway wine into the wild world of natural.

It’s a world that’s attracting an increasingly enthusiastic, inquisitive and diverse array of explorers. Between ethics and Instagram, natural wine is undeniably having its moment.

Nowadays, many people are concerned about the provenance and sustainability of the food they eat. This means biodynamically-grown wine made by small independent producers fits neatly into the moral and environmental framework they’re consuming within. There are even perceived health benefits thanks to the natural fermentation process involving wild yeasts and ‘gut friendly’ bacteria (kombucha heads, assemble). If the positive ecological and postulated physiological impacts aren’t enough of a draw, the distinctively quirky labels and pop-culture-tinged names are also key attractions. 

Another fun fact about the emergence of natural wine, and good news for the Southside barterers seeking biodynamic bottles to swap for my conventional Cuvées: the best bit of Glasgow to find a healthy selection of the stuff? We’re in it.

Suz O’Neill at Curious Liquids in Shawlands says they deliberately created a natural wine section featuring orange, because so many customers were asking about it – most likely after seeing it on social media. She holds up a perfectly Instagrammable bottle. It’s a succulent peach-flesh-hued wine you can all but taste just by looking at it, wrapped in a candy-coloured label depicting an orange-slice sunrise. Like, retweet, add to story.

They’ve also noticed people coming to natural wine via natural cider, or some of the more funky sour beers – customers who otherwise wouldn’t go for wine at all. It’s the naturalness, Suz thinks, that appeals and gives these customers the confidence to ask. The fact that it’s a ‘cool’ thing to ask for gives it accessibility that conventional wine lacks. Price-point aside, there’s also an inclusivity to natural wine, from the people who produce it via the language that surrounds it to the people who consume it, that sets it apart from the conventional offering. 

Suz has observed firsthand the prejudice and exclusivity prevalent in the wine and wider drinks trade. It was in reaction to this that she started Vinclusive, a non-profit project promoting diversity and inclusion within the trade. The aim is to support and amplify a broader range of voices; to educate and provide opportunities not generally available in the frustratingly homogenous industry. Natural wine is certainly part of that picture.

Up the road in Pollokshields is Made From Grapes, which began as an import and pop-up project while the owners, Liam and Sév, sought out space for an eventual wine bar and bottle shop. The heavily developed West End wasn’t quite right for the pair’s planned offering. However, they found the Southside to be welcoming and open to small new businesses, and so they opened shop on Nithsdale Road in December 2020. 

Made From Grapes sells a mix of conventional and natural wines, and again, orange is a popular ask. They haven’t noticed much trepidation when it comes to asking about the wines, in part because the labels tend not to give much away. This encourages questions, opening a dialogue about the wine and its producer. This is particularly helpful when it comes to understanding the somewhat elevated cost of natural wine; that the price ensures fair payment for the people who grow and make it. Customers tend to understand this, as they do with other organic produce, and once they’ve tried a glass, can taste the genuine value for their money. 

If you've been to visit Nanika or Bar Vini in the past six months or so, you may have spotted the Southside’s tiniest wine establishment, Judo Madonna. It was run by Jake Belben, who started holding pop-ups and by-the-glass nights a few years ago following a gateway glass of natural Riesling at a street food market in London. Working in the restaurant industry he'd noticed natural wine trickling onto the drinks scene, coming up with the rise of craft beer though nowhere near as noisily. He wasn't looking to be converted, but the tastes and textures in that fateful glass were a total revelation and he was hooked. Jake's nomadic natural wine journey began.

Judo Madonna was installed in a cosy corridor lined with satisfyingly well-stocked shelves of natural wine. A friendly neighbourhood bottle shop like a sweet shop, a record store, and a used book shop happily crushed into one. His customers are a diverse mix of locals who are curious, like good wine and want a couple of interesting bottles for the weekend, or are gradually working their way though his shelves finding new naturals to try. He also has regulars who will swing by every week or so for a firm favourite.

Jake is brilliantly well-informed about the winemakers, whose personalities frequently shine through in their offerings, and his relaxed enthusiasm is reassuring and compelling. He’s opened a bottle for the interview (I have suffered for this article, folks) and it’s a deep, complex blend, practically fizzing with crunchy red fruit. Jake introduces the grapes used; discussing the wine using joyful, unpretentious words.

The Victoria Road store has now closed, but he describes his next venture as “noodles, buns & natural wine – in convenient proximity to one of the postcode's best Guinness taps.”

All in, a key aspect of natural wine is its openness and approachability. It is inviting, and its ethics are sound, which is important to a community with its eye on environmental responsibility, inclusivity and supporting small businesses, from the growers to the importers to the sellers.

The future’s bright for natural wine on the Southside – and it’s so much more than orange.