Natural Wine Producers: Working With Nature

José Carvalho, a Portuguese musician turned winemaker, built La Cave des Nomades on three hectares of schist-rooted old vines in Banyuls-sur-Mer, creating zero-sulfur wines of startling depth before relocating to Portugal.

From three hectares of ancient Chardonnay in the Maconnais, the Verges craft long-aged, additive-free, often boldly oxidative whites that defy appellation norms.

A former Quebec City sommelier who crossed the Atlantic and now bottles tiny cuvees from his own Cotes de la Charite vines and organic Touraine fruit alike.

Dimitri Vetois and Marion Valverde work four hectares of old Jura vines by horse in Menétru-le-Vignoble, making biodynamic wines from Savagnin, Chardonnay, Poulsard, and Pinot Noir that speak clearly of limestone and marl.

A fourth-generation Nantais vigneron who converted his family estate to certified biodynamics, championing Muscadet as a serious, mineral, terroir-driven wine.

On the salty Fitou coast, Marc Castan farms his grandfather's vines with a horse and a herd of Highland cattle, bottling pure seaside Mediterranean wines.

A Charnay-les-Macon grower crafting precise, hand-harvested Maconnais Chardonnay from old vines pruned Cote d'Or style and fermented with native yeasts.

Son of northern Rhône legend Éric Texier, Martin set up on his own in 2014 with five hectares around Saint-Julien-en-Saint-Alban, working a mosaic of clay, limestone, gneiss, schist, and granite soils to make pure, zero-sulfur wines from Syrah, Cinsault, Grenache, and Roussanne.

Sixth-generation vigneron Thomas Santamaria farms 30 organic hectares of Niellucciu, Grenache, and Vermentinu across Corsica's Patrimonio appellation, producing native-yeast wines of striking Mediterranean clarity.

The Loire estate, founded by ex-racer Didier Dagueneau in 1982 and now run by his children, set the global benchmark for serious, ageworthy, single-parcel Sauvignon Blanc.

Former geologist Marc Houtin founded La Grange aux Belles in Anjou in 2004, and together with partners Julien Bresteau and Gérald Peau, now farms fifteen organic hectares of black schist to make some of the Loire's most vital natural wines.

In Entre-Deux-Mers, fifth-generation Stéphane Dupuch farms hilltop old vines organically, including Semillon planted over a century ago.