Hsiao Tung Wei of Unwined KL also shares some insights on natural wines and why we should drink them
Our crash course on natural wines begins with Hsiao Tung Wei opening a bottle of natural wine for us to try, while explaining more about the topic. “In a way, it’s tantamount to the craft beer of the wine industry; that’s a relatively simple way to put it. Everyone wants better produce, healthier options, and the same goes for wines."
The founder of Unwined KL adds: “Think about how wines were made thousands of years ago, there’s little to no technology involved, it’s basically just fermenting the grapes, bottling them and that’s basically it. In recent years however, a lot has changed, technology has made things a lot easier, but also relatively different. Yield is a big factor; there’s a lot of money to be made within the wine industry—you would want to make as much wine as possible, and ensure your crops are always healthy, so certain additives are introduced to help preserve and ensure supply."
Unwined KL is located in APW Bangsar.
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Vineyards not only need to be organic but also biodynamic, in order to properly produce natural wines. “A biodynamic vineyard is obvious, you have other plants growing around, and even some animals [grazing]; fertilisers used are natural, so you wouldn’t even require chemical pesticides and ideally the vineyard should have its own irrigation system,” explains Hsiao.
Even the process of picking the grapes must respect nature and should not involve wreaking havoc on the crops.
Natural wines, which is essentially vegan, are also known to have less sulphites than regular wines. “A lot of people think
natural wines have no sulphites but that’s just not true. It is after all naturally occurring during the fermentation process. Conventional winemakers would add more sulphites to help preserve the wine, and a lot of people correlate sulphite with bad hangovers the next day,” he says.
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