(Esquire) - In the mid-twentieth century, a number of French winemakers—known then and now as among the best in the world—adopted some dubious practices. In an effort to produce more bulk and appeal to a perceived global market, they began shifting away from their historically minimalist practices that allowed wines to vary from vintage to vintage according to climatic fluctuations. Instead, they began using new technologies to alter the flavor of wine to be more broadly palatable (or so they thought). Pesticides and fertilizers were used in the vineyards; sugar and water were added to the wine to boost the alcohol content. Not surprisingly, quality plummeted.

The 1980s marked the beginning of the much-needed backlash to these developments: the organically farmed, unfiltered, low-to-no-sulfur natural wine movement.  

It started in Beaujolais, a southern wine region in France, with a group of winemakers dubbed the "Gang of Four," who devoted themselves to experimenting with a back-to-their-roots minimalist approach in the vineyard and cellar alike. Since then, natural wine has developed into a full-blown global movement with its own festivals (La Dive Bouteille in the Loire Valley, RAW in London and Berlin) and well-known proponents such as former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, whose owns Brooklyn-based natural wine bar The Four Horsemen. Murphy makes sense as a figurehead for the movement: people love natural wine at least in part because it is anti-establishment. Most natural winemakers are small growers, many coming from previous careers—standing in stark opposition to well-financed Champagne houses owned by multinational corporations, or celebrity-backed Napa Valley estates, or even Burgundy domaines with pre-Revolutionary aristocratic heritage. 

There is a wide spectrum of styles when it comes to natural wine—and, if we're being honest, there is no exact definition that describes them all. Precisely because the concept is so nebulous, many winemakers prefer to speak of "honest" or "real" wine, rather than using the term "natural."

But in general, it can be said that classification of a natural wine starts with farming practices and soil. In many cases, natural winemakers like to say that they don't actually make the wines, but rather the wines make themselves—with healthy vineyards, very little work is required in the cellar. Fermentation takes place naturally, as opposed to via inoculation with manufactured yeasts. Sulfur—often added to stabilize a wine by killing active yeasts—is minimally used, if at all. There's meant to be an element of purity to these wines, with producers seeking grapes from vineyards farmed as organically as possible. Some go even further, producing what are known as biodynamic wines, made according to the esoteric philosophy of Rudolph Steiner (founder of the Waldorf School), that includes tenets about dry-farming, cow dung, harvesting according to the moon's cycles, and the oft-ridiculed buried cow's horn. It sounds crazy, we know. But biodynamic vineyards produce some of the world's most remarkable wines—and when it comes down to it, there's essentially one standard by which we should judge wine, and that's how it tastes.

Natural wine can be something of a gamble; you don't always know what you'll get when you pop a cork. But that's part of the fun. With the mass planting of marketable grapes like Chardonnay and Cabernet, there's been a lamentable loss of many delicious grape varieties, and because of this many natural winemakers like to work with ancient grape types and older vineyards on unique plots of land. Natural wine is worth getting to know not because it's trendy or healthier for the planet, but because if you find a great bottle—and you most definitely will—it'll be as unique a wine experience as you've ever had. To minimize the risk, here's a list of bottles we endorse.