Natural Wine Producers: Working With Nature
Portraits and interviews with the world's finest natural wine producers — farmers and winemakers who work in harmony with terroir, minimal intervention, and a deep respect for the land.
Gabrio Bini
A former Milanese architect who buries terracotta amphorae among ancient bush vines on the volcanic island of Pantelleria, ploughing by horse to make some of natural wine's most singular bottles.
Jean-Paul Dubost
A fourth-generation Lantignie vigneron farming biodynamic granite and blue-clay parcels across Beaujolais crus, fermenting with native yeasts and minimal sulfur.
Andrea Calek
A Czech émigré turned Ardèche natural-wine pioneer, Andrea Calek farms five chemical-free hectares and bottles Syrah, Grenache and Merlot with no added sulfites, fining or filtration.
Barbacan Wines – High-altitude Excellence
Barbacan is the Sega family, brothers Matteo and Luca with their father Angelo, pioneers of natural wine on the steep terraced slopes of Valtellina in northern Lombardy. Their heroic mountain viticulture preserves ancient local varieties, with wild fermentations and nothing added.
Domini del Leone
A Fidora family label from one of Italy's oldest organic estates, certified organic on the Venetian mainland since 1974 and biodynamic since 2018.
Giovanni Mesina – The Shepherd Who Makes Wine
Giovanni Mesina calls himself 'the shepherd who makes wine.' A Sardinian-born shepherd in Umbria's hills near Perugia, he planted Vermentino, the signature white of his ancestral home, and bottled his first natural vintage in 2017 while still tending a 1,000-strong flock.
Andi Knauss
Fourth-generation Remstal vigneron Andi Knauss farms over a hundred tiny plots organically, bottling Trollinger, Lemberger and Riesling with native ferments and little to no sulfur.
Fornacella
A small organic Montalcino estate, Fornacella farms about 2.5 hectares of Sangiovese at 300 to 400 meters and ages its Brunello for 36 months in Slavonian oak.
Domaine Tardieux-Gal
A certified-organic Touraine estate in Theseco-farmed since 2021 by Simon Tardieux and Jerome Gal under the principles of peasant agriculture.
Le Machin
Mike Roth and Craig Winchester launched Le Machin as a focused, low-intervention project sourcing CCOF-certified organic Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah from the fog-cooled hills of Santa Barbara County.
Slobodne Vinarstvo
Slobodne Vinarstvo -- 'free winemaking' -- is a family estate in western Slovakia reclaimed after communist-era seizure and rebuilt over 25 years into one of the country's most respected natural wine producers.
Celler Succes Vinicola
A young Catalan couple who started a winery at age 20 and turned the overlooked Trepat grape of Conca de Barbera into a new regional benchmark.