All Natural Wine; does it exist??

[Rocky Balboa]

I need someone who knows about wine to tell me where I can find an all-natural wine with no additives. What would such a wine be called?

[Thomas]

Wine is a natural product.

Which additives, precisely, concern you?

[Rocky Balboa]

Well, let me tell you. My brother is ill with a bowel disease and his doctor told him to find an all natural wine to drink. I don't know anything about wine. I know he can't eat or drink anything with any kind of artificial additives or anything in it. Please reply if you know anything about all natural wine with no additives.

[Randy Caparoso]

Well, the only thing commercial wineries use during their winemaking process is sulphur dioxide (in extremely low amounts these days). There are very, very few wineries that dispense with this practice, and therefore their wines aren't exactly the most stable. But they exist. Re:

Among California producers on the commercial market, Frey Vineyards from Mendocino makes pretty good drinking unsulphured (also organically grown)Zinfandel and Petite Sirah. Frog's Leap from Napa Valley makes cleaner, more serious unsulphured wines (Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc for whites, Zinfandels and big, pricey Cabernet Sauvignons for reds).

If you're close to Berkeley, you can stop by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant and buy numerous examples of unsulphured French wines -- particularly some wonderful Morgons (from Beaujolais, some fairly soft, yet serious, red wines) by growers such as Foillard, Lapierre, and Breton), and the famous Domaine Tempier Bandol (great dry rose, and earthy, full bodied reds). Since Kermit Lynch wines are also distributed nationally in isolated areas, you just may see them in cutting-edge, health food oriented markets (you know the type -- where they sell whole wheat flour by the bushel, "organically grown" is the operative term, and rows and rows of aromatherapy products).

Good luck!

[Thomas]

I have never heard of any bowel problems associated with injestion of sulfer dioxide gas, which is the preferred form at wineries.

Bucko, weigh in here.