Top Ten Budget Natural Wines

I found 10 bottles you can drink with confidence, but how far did I have to compromise?

Just want the wine recommendations, and sod my painstakingly written introduction? Click here.

January is the retailer’s idea of hell - it’s the month of the year when most of us gasp in horror at the post-holiday season credit card bill and tighten our belts. It is not the period most people choose to splash out on luxury items.

Wine may or may not be regarded as a luxury item in your household. But I’ll bet that the good stuff - which for natural wine fans probably means €20 a bottle and up - is not going to feature regularly on shopping lists at this end of the year. So it felt like the right moment to take a look at budget options.

How far do you have to compromise, and how low can you go in terms of price if you still want to drink wine that feels like an honest, authentic beverage, and not some industrially concocted swill that offers only the most distant reminder of fermented grapes?

Is it even possible to drink a tasty natural wine without spending big bucks?

It depends on what your definition of expensive is, and what your non-negotiables are when it comes to wine. I laid out mine, exactly a year ago, in this piece:

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My Definition of Natural Wine

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The TL;DR? I want to drink wine made from organically farmed grapes, either certified or from a trusted source, no added yeasts, no other must-corrections and ideally no filtration or fining. I’m quite OK with the pragmatic addition of a little sulphites.

Let’s talk prices. If you were hoping I’d unearth a source of biodynamic Nerello Mascalese or an undiscovered Jura wunderkind for €5 a bottle, I have to disappoint you. The only type of producer who can get a bottle into the shops at that price level is a mass production winery (ie: one producing millions of bottles per year) cutting corners in terms of grape quality, farming and/or cellar practices. Or a low-cost supermarket selling you bankrupt or loss-leading stock. If Trader Joe’s $3.99 Pinot Grigio or Lidl’s wine of the month is your chosen tipple, so be it. I won’t judge you. Much. But I assume that isn’t why you’re here.

Where are you?

A wine’s retail price depends a great deal on where you are based. Those of you lucky enough to live in or near a major European wine region will have access to the cheapest options. Spending €10 (per 75cl bottle) at the cellar door can get you something highly drinkable. Assuming you are standing at the right cellar door, that is.

I’m going to assume that most of my readers are not in that happy position. For those of us who live in mainland EU nations with reasonable alcohol taxation regimes (for example, Belgium, the Netherlands or Germany), the entry level for anything vaguely natural¹ is around €15 including local taxes. I arrived at this figure after checking a number of European online wine retailers and price comparison sites such as Wine Searcher. This is the price you’d pay in a wine shop, not a restaurant or a wine bar. The assumption at this price point is that an importer or distributor was involved in the chain.

It’s different in the US, especially if we’re talking about wines sourced from Europe. Higher transport costs plus the effect of the three-tier system mean $20 would be the equivalent, excluding state taxes. The UK’s huge and ever more complex fixed rate duty regime results in around £15 (roughly €18 at the moment). Bear in mind that in the UK, a bottle retailing for £8 is actually £4 of wine, importer and retailer margin plus £4 of taxes.

Criteria and Compromise

I’ve hunted down 10 bottles that all cost less than these theoretical lower limits. These are all wines that I heartily recommend, both for how they taste and for their ethical and natural credentials.

There are compromises here. Entry level wines are often made with bought-in rather than estate grown grapes, but in the case of organic or biodynamic growers, any bought in grapes should hold the same certification. These will almost always be simple wines, sold without significant ageing at the winery and designed for early drinking.

You might still ask how these wines can be so cheap? In most cases it’s about scale. Not all natural wineries are tiny garage operations, despite what you might romantically believe. The majority of the wineries below are all producing more than 100,000 bottles a year, meaning they have both the production quantity and financial flexibility to market an entry level line in addition to more profitable premium wines.

The Morning Claret Top 10 Recommended Budget Natural Wines

All of these wines are amazing value, and bottles that I genuinely enjoy drinking. Everything listed here is available for less than €15 (or equivalents as discussed above) in multiple export markets, not to mention being significantly cheaper if purchased within the country of production. That doesn’t mean every retailer has the cheapest price, nor that a given wine will be available in all markets.

I’ve done my best to provide a few sample outlets and prices for each wine. For the US I mostly picked the cheapest option. For EU, where possible I selected tried and trusted retailers, most of whom will ship to other EU countries. To find the cheapest prices, check with Wine-Searcher or (less trustworthy because it mixes in restaurant prices) Vivino. Please add a comment or contact me if you find better availability info.

The majority of these wines are made with a DYA (‘drink youngest available’) philosophy in mind. They are not the kind of bottles where you need to worry about vintage variation or ageing. Just uncork/unscrew and enjoy.

Whites

Krasna Hora - La Blanca 2022 (Moravia, Czechia)

€9ish in Czechia, €11 - €15 in the EU, from $18.99 in the US
Certified biodynamic

A super fresh, delicately aromatic field blend of Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer and Neuburger. Part of the wine was skin fermented, but you wouldn’t really know it.

Even though this is the winery’s entry level line, all the grapes are biodynamically farmed (and certified) and winemaking is 100% natural with minimal added sulphites.

€12.50 from Karamira Wines, Portugal
€14.50 from Andere Wijn, Netherlands
$18.99 from Beer and Wine Nation, New Hampshire, US

Aphros - Ten 2023 (Vinho Verde, Portugal)

€10ish in Portugal, €11.45 - €14.50 in the EU, from $15.55 in US
Biodynamic certified

From a biodynamic pioneer in wet, cool Vinho Verde, this is Aphros’s answer to old school Vinho Verde: super low in alcohol (10%), bottled with a few grams of residual sugar (barely noticeable because the acidity is so high) and a subtle natural spritz. Made from 100% Loureiro, it is bright and perky with the variety’s delicious aromatic note, reminding me of citrus essential oil. Fermentation is natural without additives, the wine is lightly filtered in order to be able to display the Vinho Verde DOC.

€11.45 from Lebendige Weine, Germany (ships worldwide)
€13.95 from PorteVino, Belgium
$15.99 from Cellar D’or, New York US