Italian Wine Podcast

Welcome to Episode 1590, where Prof. Scienza discusses his upcoming seminar on wine2wine Business Forum 2023, What Does ‘Natural’ Mean In Wine? How To Engage Wine Lovers With Science. The seminar’s abstract: The European Commission has prohibited the use of the words “natural wine” on labels in Europe. Why? Primarily because there exists an underlying misunderstanding about what “natural” actually refers to in the wine sector. One side of the argument sees “natural” wines as those with zero interventions (i.e., no chemicals, no sulfites, no pesticides, etc.), while forgetting that the harvest, fermentation and bottling processes all involve human intervention. The other side of the argument says the only wines that are truly “natural” must be those made from wild vines with no genetic selection over time – and these wines simply do not exist. While both arguments can be viewed as extreme, both have at heart a desire for sustainability, care for the environment and attention to the health of consumers. Recent