Besides the obvious benefits such as not ingesting pesticides from non-organically farmed wine, or processing chemical additives, there is some proof that natural wine is healthier.
Isabelle Legeron, Master of Wine and RAW WINE Founder discusses the research in her book Natural Wine. It boils down to a few key points:
- Organic fruits and berries contain up to 58% more antioxidant polyphenols, according to a UC Davis 2003 study.
- There are significantly higher levels of resveratrol—an antioxidant found in wine—in grapes farmed sans synthetic chemicals and without tilling, pruning, or de-leafing, than in those farmed traditionally.
- Fining and filtration also remove the desirable resveratrol.
- A compound called glutathione, which is essential to help your body break down the alcohol—so that it is excreted rather than passed through the bloodstream—is highly susceptible to sulfites. Therefore, wine with lower sulfite levels is more easily processed by the liver.
- A clinic in Rome that studies how food affects our genes (the Clinical Nutrition and Nutrigenomic Division of Medicine) found that, essentially, “bad cholesterol” goes down when you drink wine without sulfites.
Organic and biodynamically-grown grapes are resilient to disease and other threats via their adaptability. The healthy flora and fauna of the grapes themselves, combined with the aforementioned points would lead one to imagine that drinking natural wine is a relatively health-conscious choice. Of course, it might not be the only reason for that choice!