Is Natural Wine Really Better? An Industry Insider’s Honest Take

In recent years, natural wine has become a buzzword. It appears on wine lists in trendy bars, fills shelves in independent bottle shops, and is celebrated in glossy lifestyle magazines. It’s presented as hip, raw and authentic — wine in its purest form. For the past few years, I’ve observed the rise of this movement with caution…for I’ve noticed there’s a critical question that rarely gets asked: is “natural” wine necessarily better?

Consider milk: left completely raw, it can spoil or carry risks; pasteurised with care, it becomes safe, stable, and nourishing without losing its essence. Or wool: straight from a sheep it is dirty, tangled, and unusable; through spinning, weaving, and meticulous tailoring, it becomes clothing — practical, beautiful, and enduring. In both cases, thoughtful, intentional human guidance elevates and improves what nature provided. 

Wine is no exception.

I am not a formally-trained winemaker — that is my husband’s craft — but I do work alongside him in the cellar every vintage: crushing grapes, plunging ferments, tasting tanks, and experiencing the realities of small-batch winemaking first-hand. I also serve as General Manager of our family’s McLaren Vale winery in South Australia, a role that gives me both a practical and strategic view of the industry. While the natural wine movement has garnered plenty of attention, I find myself troubled by the way wine faults are often rebranded as virtues and that the ideal of skilled craftsmanship is being usurped by a return to primitive techniques — a narrative that I believe risks undermining both wine quality and consumer trust long-term.

What Is Natural Wine? The Promise vs. the Reality

At its heart, the natural wine philosophy is about restraint — elevating what happens naturally with minimal intervention over the role of skilled refinement. Grapes are left to ferment only with wild yeasts, preservatives are avoided, and winemaking steps like filtration and heat- and cold-stability are rejected in the pursuit of a wine that is “pure,” unmanipulated, and expressive. Producing an expressive wine is an admirable goal, and at times the natural winemaking approach does occasionally yield bottles that are vibrant and engaging — though often the results are inconsistent.

Our philosophy at Hastwell & Lightfoot, my family’s winery, is very different. Through intentional choices in the vineyard and winery, we proudly intervene to elevate, refine and make safe and enjoyable, the raw materials nature gives us. It is akin to the difference between conducting an orchestra and simply hoping unpractised musicians will come together in symphony: chance may occasionally produce a beautiful melody, but skill and direction produce a polished and repeatable result. We strive to craft wines that are consistently fresh, balanced, and true to their varietal character — always ensuring the fruit from the vineyard remains at the heart of what we do. We believe that leaving the winemaking process unguided (i.e., natural) does not produce a superior result; it is an abdication of responsibility.

Natural Wine Faults: When Flaws Are Dressed Up as Virtues

In conventional winemaking, issues such as excessive volatile acidity (a vinegar-like sharpness), oxidation (flat or bruised flavours), or “mousiness” (a stale flavour that creeps in after swallowing, often compared to licking a damp mouse cage – really!) are considered flaws – undesirable characteristics in the wine that we ideally want to eliminate entirely to optimise taste and enjoyment. Sometimes this is easier said than done, but it's the ideal toward which we strive.

In the natural wine world, these faults are sometimes rebranded as “character”, “funk”, and “authenticity”. But let’s be clear: flaws are still flaws and marketing this style of wine as purer or superior to a clean, carefully made wine is misleading — it disrespects both the rational judgement of our consumers and the concept of truth.

It calls to mind the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes — where people are urged to admire something that, in truth, is not there. In the same way, when consumers are encouraged to celebrate faults as virtues, we risk wine becoming a dishonest expression of place and time, a narrative built on illusion rather than integrity. Authenticity is not synonymous with au naturel. It comes from attentiveness — in the vineyard, in the cellar, and throughout the craft of winemaking. If anything, flaws mask the authenticity of varietal, region and vintage. 

It is easy to make a faulty wine; any honest winemaker, from home fermenter to seasoned professional, can attest to that. What is difficult — and what requires true craft — is producing a wine that is balanced, flavourful, and free from flaws. To glorify natural wine in its most extreme form is to blur the distinction between chance and craftsmanship, placing accidental outcomes on the same pedestal as the work of winemakers who devote decades to mastering their skill and ensuring consistency, balance, and integrity in every bottle. If you were commissioning an architect to create a skyscraper or a home, you wouldn’t accept flaws in the structure of the building. Why then, are consumers being encouraged to not only accept — but celebrate — flaws in wine? 

Sulphites in Wine and Filtration: Why They Matter

Two practices standard in conventional winemaking — the use of sulphur dioxide and filtration — are often dismissed in the natural wine world, yet each serves an essential purpose in minimising faults and ensuring stability and drinkability.

• Sulphur Dioxide (SO₂): In small amounts, sulphur dioxide acts as a preservative, protecting wine from oxidation and spoilage. Without it, wines are far more vulnerable once opened: they can turn brown, lose freshness or develop off aromas within hours. It’s the difference between a bottle that still shines the next day and one that’s undrinkable by dinner. To put this in perspective, dried fruits such as raisins or apricots often contain 500–2,000 ppm of sulphur dioxide, while dry wine typically sits between 20 and 150 ppm (with 250 ppm as the legal upper limit for dry wines). Per serving, you consume far more sulphites from dried fruit than from wine — a fact that often surprises people.
• Filtration: Filtration is about clarity and stability. An unfiltered wine might look romantic in the glass, but it also leaves behind yeast cells and bacteria — and when those microbes remain active, the wine can keep fermenting in the bottle, creating fizz where it doesn’t belong — or, in some cases, spoilage. In other words, what seems like “texture” or “cloudiness” can quickly become a petri dish. There’s a reason you don’t drink unfiltered water out of a muddy river.

These aren’t abstract technicalities. Sulphur dioxide and filtration are practical measures that ensure the bottle of wine you’re opening — whether it’s today or ten years from now — is fresh, expressive, and safe to drink. Rejecting sulphur dioxide and filtration doesn’t make a wine better or purer; it simply makes it more fragile. An unfiltered wine is an unfinished wine; it’s a house without a roof, vulnerable to the elements.

The Honest Truth About Natural Wine

The rise of natural wine has brought attention to ideas like transparency in winemaking and sustainable sourcing of raw materials, but too often these positives come as a package deal, elevating unstable wines with obvious faults. 

Our team at Hastwell & Lightfoot believes authenticity is not about doing less — because less inherently does not equal better. In winemaking, as in life, a quality outcome often requires more work, more effort, and more intentional intervention. A flavourful, balanced wine doesn’t appear by chance — it is the result of dozens of deliberate decisions in the winery and vineyard: managing ferment temperatures carefully rather than leaving them to run wild, filtering for clarity and stability rather than bottling with microbes still active, drawing on the latest scientific research as well as tradition to preserve integrity in the glass, and ensuring wines are heat- and cold-stable so they travel well and age gracefully. These steps don’t strip wine of character; they safeguard it, allowing the wine to speak clearly of its place and its time — not only today, but for many years to come.

This is the cornerstone of our winemaking philosophy at Hastwell & Lightfoot — and it continues to guide our team every vintage.

To us, enjoying wine should never involve pretending flaws are virtues. It should be an honest celebration of what true skill and craftsmanship can achieve — a testament to the strength of human spirit and ingenuity. Drinking wine made with expertise and precision is like reading a finished novel rather than scattered notes on a page: one offers coherence, depth, complexity and lasting satisfaction, the other only fragments of what might have been.

👉 Discover more about our winemaking approach at the Hastwell & Lightfoot cellar door. Settle in for a guided, educational tasting experience and platter lunch and enjoy wines that are estate-grown, small-batch, and authentically McLaren Vale. And don't worry: we promise they're not 'natural'.