Let Nature Take Its Course

The new darling of the wine world is unfiltered, untamed and raw. The natural wine movement has found a lively home in Singapore’s bars and restaurants, writes Nafeesa Saini.

- Nafeesa Saini

I was first introduced to natural wines in 2019 by Spa Esprit Group’s founder and CEO Cynthia Chua. What started as an interview morphed into a casual crash course on natural wines. The bottle we sampled was the Domaine Christian

Binner Si Rose. From the first sip, I understood why she described natural wines as “alive”. Light and bright, it was effervescent with pronounced rose notes and a citrus acidity. Its fizziness and sour notes, coupled with its cloudy appearance, reminded me of kombucha.

Not all natural wines are created equal. Some are pure and crystalline, while others are funky – a catch-all term that describes sharp, yeasty flavours and unconventional profiles.

Chua first discovered natural wines at a lunch in Paris, realising that they go down easy: “If I have a standard glass of red at lunch, I’ll feel like I need to go to bed.” Her claim has been widely debated. While some argue that sulphites and preservatives added to conventional wines cause hangovers and headaches, the compound is naturally present in trace amounts in all fermented beverages.

GROWER TO GLASS

Natural wines, meanwhile, are made with minimal intervention. “Nothing is added. Nothing is taken away,” Chua explains. They are made from organic grapes grown without pesticides or herbicides, and then vinified without additives, added yeasts or preservatives. Sulphites – used to preserve the taste of the wine at the time of bottling – are avoided or used in tiny amounts.

All that’s left is for nature to develop the wine’s flavour. In the words of Alvin Gho, Co-Founder of RVLT, a natural wine is “more nature, less human”.