Anthony Allport Wine

As the wine industry battles long-term structural decline in a number of markets, alternative wines encompassing natural, organic, sustainable and Fairtrade – offer opportunities for growth in some markets.

While climate concerns are not enough in themselves to justify the purchase of these products, alternative wines continue to buck broader industry trends thanks to a strong perceived association with higher quality and ‘better for you’ attributes, according to IWSR consumer tracking data. “Alternative wines – in a pessimistic wine landscape and under growing economic pressure – continue to offer opportunities for growth. The typical consumer audience is younger legal-drinking aged wine drinkers who have positive associations with the segment and are willing to pay for products that align with their needs and values,” says Richard Halstead, COO

Consumer Research, IWSR.

“While sustainability and climate concerns remain factors driving purchase for these categories, the alternative wine audience is now more focused on quality and suitability for their personal needs. Combining this factor with the growing trend for purchasing less but better, spending on alternative wines is easier for consumers to justify.”

Opportunities for organics

 Organic wines enjoy the highest awareness levels among alternative wines, and the segment is continuing to grow around the world, although consumption is concentrated in Germany, France and the UK, which account for nearly 60% of total volumes across reported markets, according to IWSR data. Germany and Sweden are the most mature organic wine markets, while Australia and South Korea have experienced the biggest growth in recent years, albeit off a small base. “Looking ahead, Sweden and Germany remain the key markets in which organic wine has now entered the mainstream,” says Halstead. “Meanwhile, growth opportunities are evident in newer alternative wines markets such as Hong Kong, Brazil and New Zealand. This is driven by an increase in awareness and consideration of the category, and an increase in purchasing in New Zealand.” Quality associations are vital While sustainability remains a core value for most wine drinkers, climate concerns in themselves are insufficient to justify spending more on alternative wine products – especially at a time of economic pressure. In this context, quality is paramount. In the US, 30% of both LDA Gen Z and Millennial regular wine drinkers associate organic wines with high quality, compared to 12% of Boomers, according to IWSR data; similar trends are exhibited in the UK and Australia, and also for natural wines. “Younger age cohorts – the most engaged buyers of alternative wines – show stronger positive associations for organic and natural wine, especially in the UK, US and Australia,” explains Halstead. “On the other hand, fewer Boomers – the age group engaged the least with alternative wines – associate them with high quality.”

Millennials drive growth

 Millennials are the chief age cohort driving growth in alternative wines, accounting for 69% of consumers in China who claim to buy more than two alternative wine types, according to IWSR research, noting that Chinese consumer perceptions are often misaligned with the technical status of the products they buy. Broadly similar trends – but with slightly lower percentages – are present in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. “Millennials have the widest alternative wine repertoires,” says Halstead. “Older age cohorts show established habits, purchasing mainly organic wine across markets, as well as Fairtrade in the UK. “A combination of climate concern and a stronger perception of higher quality make Millennials the most engaged with alternative wines.” Sentiment shift in the US Regular wine drinkers in the US have a strong connection to sustainability and alternative wines, but both of these measures have fallen significantly in the past 12 months, with a similar trend evident in terms of consumers being willing to purchase sustainable wine, and to pay more for it when they do. As a result, the proportion of sustainable-minded consumers in the US has fallen back to 2021 levels, impacting their purchasing and spend priorities – although the market for organic and natural wines has remained stable, thanks to the support of the crucial Millennial demographic. “The US remains the market in which the most wine drinkers purchase more types of alternative wines, despite the fact that fewer American wine drinkers were highly engaged with sustainability and alternative wines this year,” says Halstead. “This decline in engagement could be attributed to increasing economic pressure, and to the fact that some brands positioned towards health and wellness have replaced those positioned as being sustainable.”

The unprecedented growth was primarily driven by the open borders, which helped ease labor shortages that producers struggled with during the pandemic. Additionally, the increase in tourism brought more attention to the country’s wine industry and provided a boost to small wineries. The U.S.’s insatiable thirst for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc also pushed the country’s sales to record breaking heights, jumping 25 percent in value to $870 million. New Zealand expects further growth in the U.S. in the year ahead, suggesting that it could become a billion dollar export market for the country.

Throughout the report, much of the growth is attributed to New Zealand’s darling wine, Sauvignon Blanc. This signature style is key to the country’s export success, so much so that Clive Jones, chairman of New Zealand Winegrowers admits. “Performance of other styles struggle to match this pace, but in export markets and at home, our range of highly distinctive wine styles is a critical contributor to our reputation as a producer of the first rank.”

Export sales are particularly important to New Zealand’s wine industry: almost 90 percent of all its sales occur outside of its home market. So even though the country only produces less than two percent of global wine supply, New Zealand is the sixth-largest exporter of wine by value.

And although this report brings hope and excitement to the New Zealand wine industry, the country is currently facing a different set of challenges from the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle, which hit the country’s North Island in February. The country’s overall harvest volume is down six percent this year due to this devastating storm, so even though demand is on the rise, the production might not be able to keep up. The small, coastal region of Gisborne was hit particularly hard, with production down 43 percent. The renowned Hawke’s Bay region was also affected, but to a lesser extent. Overall, an estimated 800 hectares of vineyards lost some level of their fruit production and an additional 300 hectares of vineyards experienced significant infrastructure damage.

New Zealand Winegrowers says in the report that combating climate change through promoting sustainable practices and responding to extreme weather events like Cycline Gabrielle will continue to be a major focus.

“As with other primary industries, climate change is one of the key major challenges facing our sector; it is now a reality that producers are facing on a daily basis and is impacting day-to-day decisions,” Jones says.

Australian wine needed a wake-up call.

As if on cue, four passionate and quirky outliers exploded onto the scene. They brought wild, cloudy and ultradrinkable wines the likes of which most Aussie consumers hadn’t seen. Natural Wine had arrived like a jolt of lightning, sending shockwaves throughout the wine world, disrupting the status quo and ruffling feathers in its wake. The motley crew, which became known as much for its theatrics as for its wines, was called Natural Selection Theory and comprised Adelaide Hills-based James Erskine of Juma Wine, Anton van Klopper of Lucy Margaux Wines, Barossa Winegrower Tom Shobbrook and Sydney artist Sam Hughes.

Members hid amphorae behind velvet drapes and played music to them; leapt onto tables during trade tastings; performed interpretive dance and launched a “hot pants tour” conducting events wearing only, you guessed it, hot pants. Thanks to the foundation laid in large part by the Natural Selection Theory, few corners of the wine world have been more profoundly affected by the natural wine movement than Australia.

In the Beginning

Today, natural wine, the “nothing added, nothing taken away” approach, is an integral part of the wine landscape that questions the use of chemicals in winemaking and has attracted a new generation. Ten years ago, vin naturel was on the rise in places like Beaujolais and the Loire Valley, both spiritual homes of the movement. Yet, it was little more than a whisper in the New World. Australia already had a number of small-scale producers that practiced their own versions of traditional, low-tech winemaking. But they weren’t as disruptive or ideological as the Natural Selection Theory. “We’d travel the country in Anton’s Land Rover, shooting and fishing our way between capital cities so we could cook these foods for our events,” says Erskine. “We sold hundreds of 23-liter demijohns topped with grapeseed oil [called the] ‘Voice of the People,’ with a stainless-steel siphon and cherrywood tap. These were refillable at ‘terroir cell’ stations in Sydney and Melbourne, where we’d drop off 500-liter barrels of wine for that purpose.” The purpose was to energize the public and offer an alternative to what the group deemed overindustrialized wines. “We were just bored by and uninterested in homogenous, manufactured wines,” Erskine says. By contrast, the wines that they made were singular. The grapes were farmed organically and biodynamically, and the wines were made without manipulations or additives; often, the widely used preservative sulfur dioxide was omitted. These stripped-back methods gained adoration from some and criticism by others. The latter group took issue both with the term “natural” and with the wines themselves, which could be extreme to the point of faulty. Nevertheless, the Natural Selection Theory, with its wild wines and even wilder behavior, had made its mark. And it wasn’t alone. There were others working in this vein, albeit more quietly, many of whom launched labels around the same time.

“The emergence of natty wine in Oz in the late 2000s, early 2010s pretty much coincides with the country’s wine community as a whole being on the bones of its arse,” says Max Allen, an Australian wine writer. “The energy and disruption of natural wine was a huge breath of fresh, reviving air.”

The Middle Phase

In the far western corner of Australia, Ben Gould and his wife, Naomi, purchased a small plot of vineyards at the edge of Margaret River’s main highway. He couldn’t bear to spray chemicals on the same land where his young family were being raised, so he began to convert the farm to organics and biodynamics. Fresh from travels in Europe, where he was introduced to natural wine, he released Blind Corner’s first minimal intervention wines in 2010. “In the winery, it was all experimentation, calculated risk and blind faith,” says Gould of his early natural winemaking attempts. “There was not a lot, if any, knowledge on this style of winemaking in the region at the time. I made a lot of mistakes, made a lot of shit wine trying to make clean, expressive wines with no packet fixes.” Gould was joined by a like-minded couple, Sarah Morris and Iwo Jakimowicz, who launched their Si Vintners label in 2011. The wines were made from vineyards in the southern part of Margaret River that they’d converted to biodynamics.

Clutching bottles of their flor-covered Semillon, Chincheclé, Morris and Jakimowicz flew with Gould across the country and introduced their wines to the world at Australia’s inaugural natural wine fair, Rootstock Sydney, in 2013. Throngs packed the event’s small venue, jockeying for face time with Aussie natural winemakers, plus some star international producers. The following four Rootstock events, housed in a significantly bigger venue than the first, overflowed with both natural wine fans and a growing cohort of producers. Each year’s success helped cement the movement’s influence Down Under.

As their colorful labels popped up all around the country, so did bars, shops and restaurants that specialized in natural wines. The Basket Range, a tiny sub region of the Adelaide Hills, became the hotbed of the movement. “We went through the phase of experimentation, implementing the bedrocks of natural wine in Australia, and it was very theatrical and colorful,” says journalist and presenter Mike Bennie, who cofounded and codirected Rootstock. “Then what happened was the next stage: People were excited by [natural wine] and wanted to be part of it all. “It drew people like Gareth Belton [of Gentle Folk Wines], a botanist by training, into James Erskine’s winery. It drew in the very important young Broderick brothers [of Basket Range Wine], whose father planted the first vineyards in the Basket Range, down to Anton van Klopper’s house, which was next door,” says Bennie.

“We went through the phase of experimentation, implementing the bedrocks of natural wine in Australia, and it was very theatrical and colorful… People were excited by [natural wine] and wanted to be part of it all.” –Mike Bennie, cofounder, Rootstock

He refers to this period as the “middle phase” of natural wine, which attracted intellectuals and second-generation winemakers. Belton and the Brodericks both fit firmly within the confines of natural wine. They farmed their vineyards without chemicals and made wines with minimal intervention. But the criteria for who was in the fold varied. It was often determined as much by those who sold the wine as those that made it. Social media fanned the flames.

“So you had this genesis from the Natural Selection Theory into this very broad interpretation of ‘natural,’ [with fruit] frequently not sourced from organic/biodynamic grapes, which is the foundation stone of what natural wine is,” says Bennie. “But what I think has happened now—and this is sort of the third phase—is that a lot of people who have been drawn into the middle phase have been found out for what they are. [Their wines] can be still celebrated and enjoyed, but what it’s also done is focused people back to [the] vineyard.”

Natural Wine Today

True to the name of the original gang, Australia’s natural wine movement is performing its own kind of natural selection. And the wines are better because of it. “Australia often moves quite quickly on these things,” says Bennie. “The 10- to 15-year period this has all occurred in is quite remarkable to see. There is now very high-quality wine coming out of this idiom.” Gould’s Blind Corner label has enjoyed exponential growth. In 2014, he purchased a nearly 50-acre property, five times the size of his original one, and converted it to biodynamics. His wines are the expressive beauties he dreamt of a decade ago. Morris and Jakimowicz have also been learning. Today, Si Vintners focuses on pristine, ageworthy Chardonnays reflective of their unique site.

“The number of producers who today identify as natural or are a bit natural-ish or tick a lot of the natural boxes is uncountable.” –Max Allen, wine writer

Margaret River has come a long way, too.

“Now you have fresh energy coming in from new producers, and established wineries and vineyards moving this direction as well,” says Gould. “Our oldest winery and vineyard, Vasse Felix, recently started converting their entire [800 acres or so] across to certified organic. That is a huge message to the rest of the industry. More wineries are not acidifying and using wild yeast in the winery, skin ferments, concrete tanks, qvevri, etc. Some older established places are even making pét-nat. It is a very exciting time to be in Margaret River.”

It’s a very exciting time to be in Australia, period. Natural wine may still occupy just a small slice of the wine market, but its influence is widespread. There are few producers in Oz today who don’t question the use of chemicals like herbicides in the vineyards or don’t experiment with wild ferments and other “natural” techniques. “The number of producers who today identify as natural or are a bit natural-ish or tick a lot of the natural boxes is uncountable,” says Allen.

As for the Natural Selection Theory, it more or less disbanded at the end of 2012, when Sam Hughes tragically took his own life. While Erskine, van Klopper and Shobbrook continue to craft some of the country’s most boundary-pushing wines, the Natural Selection Theory accomplished what it set out to do. The groundwork has been laid for a more open-minded, creative, environmentally conscious and irreverent Australian wine culture. Perhaps this reflective, so-called third phase of natural wine, as more producers focus their gaze back onto the vineyards, will more clearly define the boundaries of what it means to be “natural.”