Natural Wine: All You Need to Know Before Your First Glass

There's a moment that happens at Bar Crispin most evenings. Someone picks up the wine list, scans it, and says: "I've heard of natural wine, but I don't really know what it means." It's a good question, and one we're glad people ask out loud.

Low-intervention wine, when explained properly, is not complicated. But it does require unlearning a few assumptions about how wine is made. This guide is for anyone who's curious, a little sceptical, or simply wants to drink better without feeling out of their depth.

What is natural wine?

Natural wine has no single legal definition, which is part of why it confuses people. In broad terms, it is wine made with as little human intervention as possible: grapes grown without pesticides or herbicides, fermented using only wild yeasts already present on the grape skins, and bottled without the additives that have become routine in conventional winemaking.

Think of it as wine in its most honest form. What the grape grew in, where it grew, the year it was harvested all of that shows in the glass, unmasked.

How conventional wine is made

To understand low intervention winemaking, it helps to know what you're comparing it to.

Conventional wine is a highly managed product. Grapes are often grown in large monocultures using chemical treatments. In the winery, winemakers use commercial yeasts to control fermentation, add sulphites as preservatives, and may filter, fine, acidify, or oak-chip the wine to achieve a consistent, predictable result.

None of this is sinister, and some of it produces excellent wine. But it does mean the finished bottle can taste more like a product than a place.

What 'low intervention' actually means

Low intervention wine, the phrase our sommelier Alex Price prefers to the more contested term "natural", sits on a spectrum.

At one end: wines made with organically or biodynamically farmed grapes, wild yeast fermentation, minimal sulphites, and no additives. At the other: wines where the winemaker has made one or two deliberate choices to reduce intervention, without committing to every principle.

Why natural wine can taste different

This is the thing no one quite prepares you for.

Your first glass of a skin-contact wine, sometimes called orange wine, made by leaving white grape juice in contact with its skins during fermentation, might taste tannic, slightly cloudy, and vivid in a way that doesn't fit any category you already have. A Beaujolais from a biodynamic producer in the Jura might smell lightly funky, herbal, alive. A pétillant naturel might have a faint fizz that feels almost alive in the glass.

The common misconceptions

A few things we hear regularly, and what we'd gently push back on:

• "Natural wine is always cloudy." Some are, some aren't. A small amount of sediment or cloudiness often means the wine is unfiltered, which is not a flaw.
• "It's a trend." Farming without chemicals and fermenting with wild yeasts is how wine was made for most of human history. This is old knowledge reappraised, not a fashion.
• "It always tastes weird." The wines Alex Price selects for the Spitalfields bottle shop run from the easy-drinking to the genuinely unusual. There is no entrance exam.
• "It's more expensive." Sometimes, yes, small-producer farming costs more. But many of the bottles on our lists sit in the same range as their conventional counterparts.

Start your natural wine journey at Crispin

If you'd like to try before committing to a bottle, Bar Crispin at 19 Kingly Street, Soho, a short walk from Oxford Circus and Carnaby Street, is the place to begin. The by-the-glass list changes regularly, and the team will always point you towards something that suits the evening.

Natural wine rewards curiosity. So does Crispin. Come and find your first favourite.