Best Natural Wine Brands, Ranked

Founded by Marc Barriot in 2004, Clot de l'Origine earned its Agriculture Biologique (AB) certification in 2009 and has delighted consumers by producing natural wine of great quality and variety despite modest land holdings. According to its website, the domain's success is due in part to the diversity of terroir its grape-growing parcels enjoy. Low-altitude sites like its Salses le Château and Espira de l'Agly vineyards abut the sea, lending freshness and salinity to the wines. Other inland vineyards sit at higher altitudes and have different soil types like brown schist and black shale that result in wines that are totally different from their seaside siblings.

Marc Barriot has run an organic shop since the beginning. Much of the domaine's labor is done by hand, including manual harvest that uses no modern machinery. Grapes are de-stemmed and placed in concrete vats to macerate and ferment, and all bottling is done without fining or filtration.

These natural wines are a delightful cross of new-age sensibilities and old-school elegance. Clot de l'Origine is known especially for its blanc de noirs, a white wine made from red grapes. These often present as more textured, fuller whites that pair well with food.

This one's a twofer. Les Lunes and Populis are two California wineries run by friends Shaunt Oungoulian and Diego Roig. Though both brands follow the natural wine tenets of organic farming and no additives, there are marked stylistic differences in the final products of each. At Les Lunes, Shaunt and Diego grow their own grapes and produce more elegant and refined wines. You can think of these as natural wine's nod towards "traditional" winemaking, without any of the over-the-top funk factors that natty wine has become known for. These wines are, on the whole, classically styled and age-worthy.

Populis is just the opposite. At this brand, Shaunt and Diego purchase grapes from Mendocino County winegrowers and produce fun, flirty, meant-to-be-drunk-right-now wines. Expect chillable reds, whites, and roses within the $20-$30 range with cute branding that are perfect to bring along to any party. Try Les Lunes and Populis together if you want to figure out which side of the natural wine coin you prefer; funky and fresh or refined?

Travis Tausend is both the man and the brand. According to the website of his U.S. importer Tess Bryant, Travis does nearly all the winery's work completely on his own, from bookkeeping and bottling to marketing and design. He accepts help only during harvest season when friends and family lend a hand to help him get grapes from vineyard to cellar. The Tausend winery is located in the Adelaide Hills of Southern Australia and produces wines from merlot, riesling, and sauvignon blanc. 

Travis considers his winemaking an art and believes that changes in taste and style from vintage to vintage come as much from external factors like seasonal climate as from internal variables like emotion, intuition, and personal growth. Travis Tausend wines are often wildly different from what one might expect of a given grape. His sauvignon blanc, for instance, might present as tangy, fresh, and citrus-driven one year and offer a funky, almost nutty quality the next. The ever-changing nature of the Tausend wines is what makes them so fun. If all you've experienced from Australian wine is Yellowtail, it's time to try something better. Give Travis Tausend a shot.

Le Clos du Tue-Bœuf is a centuries-old estate located in France's Loire Valley. According to Louis-Dressner Selections, brothers and Tue-Bœuf owners, Jean-Marie and Thierry Puzelat, were instrumental in helping the natural wine movement migrate from Paris to the Loire in the mid-to-late 1990s. The men were early adopters of what would become no-brainer natural wine tenets: organic farming, use of native yeasts, and no additives at bottling. The brothers were also thought-leaders in unburdening themselves of France's strict AOC system, instead deliberately declassifying their wines and selling them as the "lowest" tier Vin de France to skip restrictive rules about which grapes they could or couldn't use in their wines. The Puzelats were trendsetters for this practice, which is now common among many natural winemakers in France and Italy who would rather play by their own rules than bend to bureaucratic wine doctrine.

Tue-Bœuf makes this list for its important historical contribution to the world of natural wine, yes, but also because their wines are consistently excellent. The brand produces reds, whites, and rosés, with a focus on sauvignon blanc, romorantin, chardonnay, pinot noir, and gamay. Expect a touch of the wild in these natty wines, but with excellent balance and intriguing flavors.

Wine professionals — and most alcohol professionals of any stripe — are usually wary of celebrity brands. Indeed, a cynic might posit that many celebrity booze brands are passionless cash grabs lacking the TLC necessary to make something truly great. (Not us, of course. We wouldn't say that. But a cynic might.) Enter Eric Wareheim's Las Jaras Wines, a natural wine brand whose wines are as hype-worthy as their makers.

Wareheim got famous for his goofy Adult Swim show "Tim & Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job!" But, there's very little to laugh at when you pop a bottle of Las Jaras Wines. Wareheim is a serious oenophile, and he partnered with his friend and California winemaker Joel Burt to bring Las Jaras Wines to life. The brand's vineyards are farmed organically, and the wine it makes is just as good — and often better — than any of the "real" natural wine brands out there. Las Jaras Wines' output is prolific, with a portfolio that offers red (both chillable and not), white, rosé, sparkling wine, and a selection of canned wine for on-the-go fun.

Don't turn your nose up at this just cause you've seen the guy on T.V. Eric Wareheim and Joel Burt are the real deal.

Claus Preisinger's simple labels belie a complex and exquisite product. The Burgenland-based winemaker focuses most of his efforts on traditional Austrian grapes like blaufrankisch, sankt laurent, zweigelt, and gruner veltliner, and it's hard to think of a better ambassador for the country's wine scene than Preisinger.

According to Soil Air Selection, the Claus Preisinger brand was founded in 2002 on the north shore of Lake Neusiedl in Austria's Burgenland region. From the beginning, Claus always farmed naturally and used native yeasts in the fermentation of his wine. In 2004, he joined Pannobile, a collective of area winemakers who meet monthly to exchange ideas and opinions about the development and production of natural wine. And, in 2006, the Claus Preisinger brand fully converted its vineyards to biodynamic practices.

Claus's wines are silly, yet serious. He has bottles he calls "FruitLoops" and "DOPE.," but these aren't the cheap gimmicks of lesser winemakers who might slap a cute label on a mediocre bottle. Claus Preisinger wines are well-balanced and bursting with flavor, and make for a great party trick if you've got guests who are sleeping on Austrian wine.

Martha Stoumen is the de facto queen of California natural wine. Though there's no official coronation for this sort of thing, it's hard to imagine anybody who's plugged into the California natural wine scene more than her. Stoumen's "Post Flirtation" series of wines has become famous throughout the United States for its cute labels and unbelievably consistent performance vintage after vintage. And Stoumen's lineup doesn't stop there. She's got whites, rosés, and reds aplenty, and has even branched out into bottled wine spritzers and piquettes for your next picnic.

After traveling the globe for eight years and apprenticing with different winemakers, Stoumen settled in Northern California and began her own operation in 2014. The Stoumen brand is committed to farming practices that encourage soil and vine health rather than high yields, and it makes use of natural predators to handle pests instead of chemical deterrents. This is hyper-popular natural wine that doesn't compromise its practices to meet demand. The brand puts out exactly what its land allows each year, and no more. We'll take it.

In some of the more bohemian wine circles, wine appreciation often becomes a competition to see who can "enjoy" the funkiest, most technically flawed natty wines out there. This is a dangerous game, as it's apt to turn off would-be drinkers who try it and think all-natural wine is this barnyard-y, stinky swill. 

Roundly rejecting that school of thought is Arianna Occhipinti, whose wines present as elegant, gorgeous masterpieces that hold their own against any of the precise traditionalists in Italy or France. Located in Sicily, the Occhipinti brand is committed to organic farming and natural winemaking. Occhipinti champions local Sicilian varietals like nero d'avola and frappato, and produces white from the muscat of Alexandria and albanello grapes.

There's no such thing as a "best" natural wine brand, but Occhipinti embodies everything we love about this genre: a deep respect for the land, low intervention in the cellar, and wines of quality that prove "natural" doesn't always mean "weird" and certainly doesn't mean "less than." In fact, it's often the best stuff available.