Walk into any good wine shop today and you'll see bottles labelled organic, biodynamic, natural, sustainable, low-intervention, minimal-sulphite, and a dozen other terms. For most drinkers, it's bewildering. After three decades of visiting vineyards across Europe, South America, and the New World, here's my attempt at a plain-English guide.
Organic Wine
What it means: The grapes are grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilisers. In the EU, organic certification (look for the green leaf logo) also limits the amount of sulphites that can be added during winemaking.
What Actually Matters
Labels are useful shorthand, but they're not the whole story. What I look for, above all, is intent: does the producer care about their soils? Are they farming for the long term?
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