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What Is Natural Wine? And Is It Better for You?

There’s no regulation or certification for natural wine, which makes it tricky to define

Natural wine might seem like an odd term. Isn’t all wine natural?

Well, yes, sort of, NBC News reports. The wine that’s dominated the market for the last few decades is made from fermented grape juice, so in a way, it is natural, but it can also contain a host of other ingredients and is often manipulated both on the vine and in the winery. This kind of wine — let’s call it conventional wine — is what most of us are accustomed to drinking.

Natural wine, on the other hand, is made with organic grapes, contains almost no added ingredients and is produced with far less intervention from the winemaker. As Alice Feiring, author of the recently published "Natural Wine for the People," puts it, natural wine boils down to “nothing added, and nothing taken away.”

Natural wine is a growing category, with more people making it, importing it and buying it, but it’s not a fad or fashion, stresses Feiring. In fact, it’s not even new. In recent years, winemaking has become increasingly technical, but natural winemaking, says Feiring, is actually the traditional approach.

It’s also not going anywhere. “For those who have tasted the real thing,” says Feiring, “there’s no going back.”

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