Compared to What? The Real Talk on Minimal Intervention Wines
“Natural” is one of those words that sounds simple—until you try to define it. Ask a dozen winemakers what natural wine means, and you’ll get a dozen different answers, ranging from poetic musings about the earth’s rhythms to dogmatic purity tests that turn winemaking into a game of ascetic one-upmanship. But here’s the thing: natural compared to what?
At Bruno, we believe in doing the absolute minimum necessary to let nature shine. That doesn’t mean we let chaos run the show. It means we respect what nature gives us while making sure we don’t let it spoil in the process.
Minimal Intervention, Not Maximum Neglect
Some people define natural wine as zero sulfites added, wild yeast only, and no filtration. But let’s zoom out. Bread is “natural,” yet most bakers don’t just let whatever yeast is floating in the air ferment their dough—they choose strains that will actually make good bread. Dried fruit, another seemingly “natural” food, contains way more sulfites than wine, yet nobody is out here debating the authenticity of a dried apricot.
So why is wine held to an impossible purity standard?
At Bruno, we reject the idea that natural wine should be a free-for-all where faults are celebrated as “funk” and microbiological instability is mistaken for character. We don’t believe that letting wine spoil in the name of purity is somehow more natural than making clean, expressive wine with the lightest touch of intervention.
Our Take on Natural & Minimal Intervention
Here’s what minimal intervention means to us:
- Zero sugar added. The way nature made it is the way we bottle it. No back-sweetening, no shortcuts. If we want balance, we get it from the vineyard—not from a sugar packet.
- Dry farmed whenever possible. No artificial irrigation means the vines have to dig deep, producing grapes that actually reflect the soil they’re grown in. It’s not always possible, but when it is, we choose it.
- Low sulfites, not no sulfites. “Low sulfites” is really just shorthand for a winemaker who actually cares. Someone who doesn’t lazily dump sulfur into the tank to sterilize the wine into oblivion, but also doesn’t let a whole vintage spoil because they’re chasing an extreme definition of purity.
- We don’t add things to manipulate flavor after fermentation. No flavor boosters, no artificial adjustments—just the grape, the place, and the vintage speaking for themselves.
- We use clean yeasts for a clean fermentation. Wild yeasts can work beautifully, but they’re unpredictable. We choose yeasts that allow the fruit and terroir to express themselves without introducing weird off-flavors or runaway fermentations.
Low Sulfites ≠ Better For You
There’s this idea floating around that “low sulfite” wines are somehow better for you. Not really. The truth? Most people aren’t actually sensitive to sulfites. (If they were, they wouldn’t be able to eat fries, dried fruit, or anything else preserved with sulfites.) The real reason low-sulfite wines matter is that it signals the winemaker gives a damn. Sulfites should be a tool, not a crutch. Some winemakers dump them in to erase all signs of life in their wine, stripping away character and complexity. Others avoid them entirely and let bacteria run wild, turning a perfectly good vintage into something barely drinkable.
At Bruno, we take a balanced approach. Just enough sulfites to protect the wine, not so much that it dulls the edges of what nature gave us.
Respecting the Grape, Not Wrecking It
The whole point of minimal intervention winemaking is to highlight what nature gave us—not to let it rot in the name of ideology. A wine riddled with off-putting flaws isn’t a tribute to nature; it’s an insult to the vineyard that grew those grapes.
At Bruno, we don’t worship dogma. We worship good wine. And that means making sure the wine is alive, expressive, and drinkable—not just “natural” in the most extreme sense of the word.
Because at the end of the day, everything is natural...the question is: compared to what?