Is Natural Wine Really Better for Your Health, or Are You Being Duped by Marketing?

Breaking down a common — but complicated — question in 8 minutes or less

If there were ever a more misunderstood category of booze than natural wine, I’d snort a line of sulfur dioxide.

Partly it’s the wine industry’s fault. No one can agree on a definition for natural wine which means it’s open to massive interpretation and misuse.

Partly, it’s big brand marketing’s fault for jumping on the bandwagon and doing what big brand marketing does best — making big sweeping statements that are only partly true in order to “demystify” the subject.

Partly it’s the customer’s fault for jumping on any micron of knowledge — be it true or not — about natural wine and calling it a day. I’m thinking the “natural wine doesn’t give you hangovers” kind of statement.

I sold natural wine for nearly a decade. Now, I consult and write about it for clients. And I want to clear some things up about natural wine, including the big kahuna question — is natural wine really better for your health?

Or are you being sold a lie?

Yes. Natural wines are better for your health

I’m not beating around the bush here. The answer is, yeah, they’re healthier.

But with caveats.

Although there is no official definition, most winemakers agree on these three elements of natural wine:

• It’s made with organically grown grapes. That is, no synthetic chemicals in the vineyard.
• It’s made with as little intervention as possible in the cellar. That means no added yeasts at fermentation, no clarifying or coloring agents, and nothing that “takes away” from pure fermented grape juice.
• Sulfites may or may not be added, but usually just at the final bottling stage and at as low a level as possible. RAW — one of the biggest natural wine fairs in the world— won’t accept bottles over 70 parts per million and often look for lower. For context, in the US, winemakers can add up to 350ppm.

If you do this, technically, you’ve got yourself a natural wine on your hands.

Here’s why that matters, health-wise:

There’s a reason why chemicals have a “do not ingest” warning on them

It may be the norm to spray our crops with chemicals these days, but that doesn’t mean your body enjoys ingesting the residue. And in wine, that matters because they are used a LOT.

In France, vineyards make up 3% of agricultural land but account for 20% of the pesticides. Which would — maybe — be OK if they were used in a way that doesn’t affect us.

But they do.

Studies have shown that many conventionally made wines have detectable levels of Glyphosate (Roundup) in the bottle. Often, they are below what the US Environmental Protection Agency considers dangerous. But other studies show that even tiny levels of Glyphosate — one part per trillion — can contribute to developing breast cancer cells.

For context, Sutter Home wine was found to have 51 parts per billion. That’s 50,000 times more than that one part per trillion.

Other studies have shown pesticide levels in conventional wine well above the “safe level.” Levels that link to Parkinson’s, cancer, and other chronic illnesses.

As someone whose uncle has Parkinson’s, I can tell you that this ain’t no joke.

Wine made without these chemicals is, of course, far less likely to have traces. But not entirely.

Therein lies the first caveat.

Studies have shown that even organic alcohol can contain some level of pesticide residue, albeit at a far lower level.

My theory? This is likely because of chemical drift — when pesticides drift from a non-organic field or vineyard to an organic one. This is such a problem it can prevent wineries from obtaining official organic certification.

I’ve seen this happen IRL. It’s devastating for natural wine producers whose vineyards sit next door to someone spraying the crap out of theirs.

Still, drift does not happen all the time, and even if it does, the level of chemical residues is likely to be much lower. You go natural, and you’re far less likely to ingest those crappy chemicals.

What winemaking additions take away

It’s a crime that winemakers are not legally obliged to list what they use in their winemaking processes which leads consumers to be confused about what is or isn’t in their wine. The US allows up to 60 additives to be used in wine, and you’ve got no idea which ones a winemaker has chosen to use.

The point here is less about the dangers of the additions used and more about what the additions take away.

Because sometimes it can be all the healthy, good stuff.

Take fining, a commonly used process where a winemaker adds a clarifying agent to a wine — typically egg white, fish bladder (yep) or bentonite clay.

The idea is to clarify and smooth out wine by pulling out compounds like tannins, proteins, and other bits and bobs.

But tannins are good for you — they have been attributed to everything from preventing Type 2 diabetes to increasing your body’s ability to clot blood.

It’s also suggested that fining reduces some polyphenols in red wine, aka the stuff that is thought to reduce cholesterol, prevent damage to blood vessels, and prevent blood clots.

Seeing as natural wines are never fined (it’s too manipulative), logic suggests you’ve got more of these health-boosting particles floating about in your wine.

Then there are the other additions that you won’t find in natural wine:

• No added sugar (it’s suggested that there is a link between sugar and hangover intensity).
• No added Mega Purple — a grape concentrate that is high in sugar content.
• No added yeast nutrients can lead to producing ethyl carbamate, a suspected carcinogen.

As they say — when it comes to natural wine, it’s nothing added, nothing taken away.

To add sulfites or not to add sulfites?

Back in my Sommelier days, one of the most common questions I was asked was about sulfites. What do they do? Are they really that bad for you?

Here’s the lowdown from a scientific point of view:

Sulfites are an allergen that affects around 1% of the population but rises to anything between 5% and 13% in asthmatics. The allergy can cause anything from a mild reaction to anaphylactic shock.

Anecdotally, I found that many more people have a sensitivity to sulfites. I’m one of them — too many of those bad boys, and I flush red as I’ve just peed myself in front of an audience.

Many people think that sulfites are also what causes headaches after drinking too much wine. And there is evidence to suggest that, yes, sulfites do contribute to a higher blood alcohol concentration because studies suggest the lower the sulfite level, the lower your blood alcohol level.

Theoretically, therefore, the fewer sulfites in your wine, the less drunk you will be. And as I mentioned earlier, natural wines contain far, far fewer of them.

Most natural winemakers will add the minimum possible sulfites that will make their wine stable. Many won’t add any at all (it’s worth mentioning here that sulfites naturally occur, which is why even a bottle of no-added-sulfites wine will still say “contain sulfites” on the label).

That’s not to say you can drink as much no added sulfites wine as you like. There is still alcohol in your alcohol, after all.

And sulfites are not the devil. They are antibacterial and do a great job of stabilizing wine. Even a small added amount can change a wine from faulty AF to delicious (I’ve experienced this first-hand in cellars across Europe).

BUT too many of them can both lead to those aforementioned health issues and deaden a wine, leaving it lifeless and boring. It’s why many natural wine producers opt to eschew them.

After all, wine is a living thing. You don’t want to kill it with too many sulfites.

Beware of natural wine B.S.

The category of natural wine is a bandwagon that has been jumped on by marketers, which makes it super difficult for consumers to know what the fuck is going on. There is so much misinformation about what it is and what it isn’t.

Although it’s objectively better for you — as proven above — there is still a lot of BS around the subject that you need to know about:

Don’t confuse organic wine with natural wine

Organic wine can still be heavily manipulated, including adding yeasts, fining, filtering, and adding high levels of sulfites (although granted, the maximum level allowed is less than conventionally made wine).

Organic wine is not a synonym for natural wine.

“Clean” wine is marketing boll*cks

Clean wine means nothing. No one I know in the wine industry would ever use the term or market their wine as such. They are not the same as natural wines because they can still be manipulated.

Take Avaline — Cameron Diaz’s “clean” wine brand. The ingredients under their Cabernet Sauvignon claim they add around 100ppm sulfites which is the maximum level allowed in the EU for organic wine (remember, natural wines are usually at a maximum of 70ppm, and most are significantly lower).

Their website also says they add yeast, a big no-no in the natural wine world.

Don’t fall for “clean” wine.

Natural wine is a process, not a flavor profile.

Natural wine has a reputation for being cloudy with funky or “faulty” flavors. And whilst this can happen when you make wine in a natural way, it’s not a given.

There are plenty of wines that are made naturally that are as “normal” in taste and appearance as conventional wine — but often with more character and flavor.

The idea of natural wine being a style pervades even in the wine industry, but it’s simply not true. This matters because it muddies the natural wine waters. It means that not all funky labeled, cloudy wines are considered natural, and not all clear, stable wines are not.

Sorry guys, wine is never that clear-cut.

If you don’t like the term natural, call it something else

I’ve heard too many people think natural wine is boll*cks because they don’t like the word natural, claiming that there is nothing natural about the winemaking process.

My two cents? If you don’t like the term, use something else. Don’t reject the movement based on semantics.

Natural wine will not prevent a hangover

If there is alcohol present, there is always the chance of a headache tomorrow. Sorry.

I always try to end my wine articles with a small warning about alcohol. Because yeah, it ain’t great for you.

But as I said in my recent mini-viral article, I write about this stuff because I know that people are going to drink whether it’s bad for them or not. So you might as well know about the differences between different types of booze.

Health-wise, you’re much better off picking up a bottle of natural wine than you are Blossom Hill White Zinfandel. A lot of conventionally made wine — particularly on the lower end of the price and quality scale — is little more than a chemical cocktail. It’s an entirely different world.

If you choose to imbibe, it’s worth knowing that difference.

This article is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered medical advice.

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