Top Ten Affordable Natural Wines

Some favourite bottles that won't break the bank

We’ve all been there. You spent all your money over the holiday period. Gifts, fancy restaurant dinners, grand cru Champagne, your subscription to this site (whaddya mean you’re not a paying subscriber yet?).

Now reality bites. It wasn’t supposed to be dry January, but the cupboard is bare. Worse still, you ruined your palate with too much premium natty. Lidl’s €5 Oaked Chardo is dead to you. Your credit card statement shows line after line of triple-digit purchases from stores such as ‘Mother Nature Wines’ and ‘Gluten-free Grape Merchants’.

I’m here to help. Last year’s Top Ten Budget Natural Wines proved popular, and all those recommendations still stand. But I need to address a couple of failings.

First, it seems the term ‘budget’ is divisive. A valued subscriber told me he automatically ignores any article with the b-word in the headline. I thought the association with frugality, compromise and shame would resonate with my northern European protestant readers. I guess they already left the building.

So ‘affordable’ it is, for this new edition. It’s a better word since the recommendations below are genuinely without compromise: honest wines from organic or biodynamic farming, with nothing added and nothing taken away. Some have a pinch of sulphites, others don’t. A couple have been coarse-filtered. All of them are delicious.

My second failing was not to list any French wines. Sacré bleu! This time round, I asked the folks at Daxivin, Wilde Wijnen and The Wine Spot to enlighten me. Yes, J’ai vu la lumière. Finalement.

My definition of budget affordable is unchanged - wines that retail at or below €15 in Europe. That means up to roughly $25 in the states or £20 in the UK. No bargain basement, but a fair price for the ground floor.

You’ll notice that the US is often a vintage or two behind what’s on sale in Europe. In most cases, additional bottle age will benefit your drinking pleasure. I’ve noted dramatic vintage differences, where known.

Whites

⚘0️⃣ Mas d’Intras - Cuvée de la Montagnere 2024 (Ardèche, France)

Vermentino, Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Clairette, Floreal

Inviting salty freshness and soft texture in this big blend. Salivating acidity, baked apple and pear with a nice dried-herb thing that adds character. A grown-up aperitif wine. Gets even better after a day or two open. Demeter certified, no added SO₂.

EU: €12.90 from Intercaves (FR), €15.50 from Daxivin (NL), US: contact importer Zev Rovine, N/A UK.

🌿 Matthias Warnung - Potatoland 2023 (Kamptal, Austria)

Supple, soft-textured Grüner Veltliner that plays more to the grape’s fruity side than its vegetal alter ego. The merest hint of the pepper grinder. Lightly filtered.
The wine gets its name from an overheard conversation with a French winemaker, who suggested that Matthias’s vineyard was only good for growing potatoes. Sacré Bleu!

EU: €12.90 from Weinfurore, €14 from Reblaus (NL), US: $25 from Atlas wines (2024), UK: £19.35 from The Sourcing Table (2022)