Natural & Orange Wines; Pet-Nats

WHAT IS NATURAL WINE?  In recent years there has been a movement toward making wines more like our ancestors, avoiding the sameness of conventional and industrial winemaking.  Natural wine is a type of wine usually made in small batches, often from hand-harvested organic or biodynamic grapes with minimal intervention in the cellar.   Using natural yeast, fermentation happens spontaneously, not induced.  If sulfur is used, it is used sparingly and only as a preservative.  Natural wines may look different than most commercial wines, sometimes exhibiting cloudiness and sediment.  That's because they are not filtered or fined.  Natural wine producers often work with local and indigenous grape varieties.  Sometimes clay amphoras are used, continuing ancient techniques.  This is rudimentary winemaking, not too different than wines made the way the Romans made wine 2,000 years ago.