Natural Wine Producers: Working With Nature

In this interview, Saša Radikon, who now leads the pioneering Friulian estate his father Stanko founded, explains his view of natural wine as minimal intervention in vineyard and cellar, and the legal fights over even naming it on a label.

On the Colli Bolognesi, the Ognibene family farms forgotten native grapes biodynamically and ferments them in beeswax-lined amphorae and bottle, ancestral method.

The only independent grower in Italy's tiny Enfer d'Arvier, Thomain farms steep alpine terraces up to 800m and makes one savory Petit Rouge red in stainless steel and fiberglass.

Angiolino Maule of La Biancara is one of Italy's founding natural winemakers, bottling his first vintage in 1988. In this interview he defines natural wine as a wine made with nothing added in vineyard or cellar, and reflects on the human role within terroir.

Alberto Buratti revived his grandfather's 1972 Euganean Hills farm under the Faedesfa label in 2020, farming 3.2 hectares on volcanic soils and making zero-sulfur pet-nats from rare local varieties.

Siblings Antonio and Rosa Gaudioso turned their family's six-generation Sicilian farm fully biodynamic, bottling Catarratto, Syrah and Zibibbo near Partanna.

Physician-turned-vigneron Roberto Moretti and his wife Lucia Mori farm 12 biodynamic hectares outside Florence, making site-specific natural wines from rescued old Tuscan varieties on the hills of Scandicci.

The Bea family has farmed in Montefalco since the 1500s; Giampiero Bea carries forward his father Paolo's radical approach: 48-day macerations, indigenous yeasts, no filtration, hand-written labels.

Organic Vesuvius winery farming ungrafted indigenous vines on volcanic pumice inside the national park, making Piedirosso, Falanghina, and Lacryma Christi with minimal intervention.

The Di Meo family has farmed ungrafted Falanghina and Piedirosso on volcanic Campi Flegrei soils north of Naples for five generations, crafting mineral wines from one of Italy's most singular wine zones.

Davide and Francesca's small-batch natural wine project in the Colli Euganei hills of Veneto, dedicated to their daughter Flor and built on synergistic farming and spontaneous fermentation.

Elena Pantaleoni has stewarded La Stoppa's 50 Emilia-Romagna hectares since 1991, uprooting international varieties in favour of native Barbera, Bonarda and Malvasia to produce age-worthy, zero-sulfite natural wines of uncompromising character.