The term natural winemaking is one that can be as difficult to define as it is easy to practice, as the stylistic boundaries and guidelines are hotly debated. To get to the heart of the matter, natural wine is a minimally manipulated product of good ole Mother Earth. Untreated grapes are picked, pressed, and gently protected and looked after as they find their way to becoming wine through spontaneous fermentation. More and more winemakers from Italy to France, Spain and Austria — and even here in California — are focusing on producing a wine that speaks of its place of origin, letting the grapes do the talking. If we want to know where our grass-fed beef is from and the name of the farmer who’s growing our organic asparagus, the same should apply to the wine we drink, right?

Here’s the essential info. you need to know about natural wines:

- Grapes are grown organically or biodynamically, sometimes certified and sometimes not. Ask your friendly wine-shop clerk to show you wines made this way, as labels don’t always reveal what’s in the bottle. Tip: Get to know importers that usually work with producers making wines this way and then check the back labels of a wine to see a name you recognize. Louis/Dressner, Savio Soares, Jenny & Francois and Jose Pastor are just some of the great importers bringing these wonderful wines to us. Domestically, Amy Atwood Selections and Revel Wine distribute some of my favorite West Coast natural wines.

- Instead of added commercial yeasts created in a lab, the just-pressed grape juice spontaneously ferments on its own from the native yeasts living on the skins of the grapes and in the cellar.

- Sulfur Dioxide, a natural product used to prevent oxidation and other potential bacterial wine flaws, is thought by many natural wine enthusiasts to be just as harmful as it is helpful if used in too large of quantities. You might see some wines with absolutely no added sulfites, but usually most will have some very small amount added after fermentation or at bottling to protect them for whatever journey they take to your glass.

- No added sugars, acidification, reverse osmosis or any of that funny stuff. There’s also no filtering or fining. Don’t beware the sometimes slightly cloudy natural wine! You would want to drink the organic, unfiltered apple juice with bits of pulp and such over the crystal-clear processed stuff stripped of all its nutrients, right? Same thing.

For some tasty, all-natural wines to try now, read more: