Natural, organic, biodynamic wine: what it really means

Three words you hear everywhere, often mixed up. The short version: organic is about the vineyard, biodynamic goes one step further in the growing, natural is also about what happens in the cellar. Here is the long version — the one we tell at the counter, place Bel-Air.

Organic: grapes grown without synthetic chemicals

Organic wine is first a vineyard matter: no synthetic pesticides or fertilisers, with a certification to prove it. That is the foundation. But organic says almost nothing about winemaking: an organic wine can be yeasted, filtered, corrected — technically flawless and short on emotion.

Biodynamic: the vineyard as a living organism

Biodynamics takes organic farming further: natural preparations to strengthen the vines, attention to cycles — including the moon —, a search for balance between soil and plant. You may smile at the buried horns; the fact remains that many of the world's greatest estates work this way, and the wines often gain in energy and precision.

Natural: winemaking without a safety net

Natural wine starts where the other two stop: in the cellar. Indigenous yeasts rather than bought ones, no additives, little or no added sulphites. The grape, the whole grape, nothing but the grape. It is the most demanding style — without a net, every flaw shows — and the most moving when done well: living, digestible wines that tell you where they come from.

A well-made natural wine is not a strange wine. It is a wine with nothing to hide.

Our winemakers, a few kilometres from place Bel-Air

The luck of being in Nyon is that all of this happens nearby. In our cellar, three houses of La Côte illustrate these three paths:

• Domaine de Montbenay — the de Watteville family has farmed this land since 1543; part of the winemaking happens in amphorae. Fifteen generations on, it is still alive.
• Domaine La Colombe — Raymond and Violaine Paccot, in Féchy, leading figures of biodynamics in Vaud: chasselas of a purity that reconciles you with the grape.
• Graenicher Vins — Vincent Graenicher, whose Es Cordelières cuvée carries the Premier Grand Cru appellation: proof that tradition and living wine are not opposites.

Our cellar is above all a living one — natural, organic, biodynamic — with fine traditional labels too, because a beautiful wine remains a beautiful wine. The selection is listed on raisin.digital, the living-wine app.

How to taste them

By the glass at the counter, at the table with the weekly menu, at the Saturday brunch, or to take away as from a wine shop — we help you pick the right bottle for what you are cooking. And several times a season, our winemaker evenings and tastings bring in the people who make the wine.

Frequently asked questions