Natural Wine Has Changed How the World Drinks
Once a scrappy rebellion against industrial winemaking, natural wine has gone global, reshaping taste, farming and even the meaning of “good” wine.
Tastings at Raw Wine New York 2025.
Source: Raw Wine
In a Brooklyn warehouse in early November, the 2025 New York Raw Wine fair was buzzing with drinkers hunting the latest in natural wine. Casually clad vignerons and importers poured for an enthusiastic crowd sporting beards, wool beanies (it was cold), fleece vests, worn jeans, scuffed boots — long the natural wine uniform.
The vibe was more subdued than the tribal exuberance at the first Raw Wine fair in London in 2012. Back then natural wine was a small-group rebellion against conventional winemaking, with charters and manifestos declaring the organic viticulture and no-additive principles they stood for. Drinking the wines marked aficionados as the anti-authority “cool kids” who valued transparency, authenticity, nature, the environment and tiny iconoclastic producers with a romantic story over corporate wine titans. The wines came with countercultural, not-your-parents’-vino appeal.