A good wine or a bad one sulphite free?

I’ve just returned from another wine fair – another tour de force and an exhausting two days of non-stop wine tastings, a “Giro d’Italia” in wine.

At the end of the event, one of the staff looked at me and said, “At first I thought you were lucky, getting invited to taste wine all day. I couldn’t imagine a better job. But now, after seeing your face and how many wines you’ve tasted, I’m not so sure I’d want to be in your shoes.”

Over those two days, I tasted more than 200 wines, starting soon after breakfast and continuing until sunset. I moved from one producer to the next, exploring wines from different regions and discovering a huge variety that I hope to import in the future. Many of these wineries were completely new to me. A new generation of winemakers is stepping in, often bottling their own grapes for the first time rather than selling them as their parents and grandparents once did. Some estates were micro-wineries, others slightly larger, but all were family-owned vineyards with traditions spanning three or four generations.

Among the wines I tasted, some came from centuries-old vineyards. Normally, vineyards are replanted every 40–50 years because older vines produce smaller yields and are less commercially viable. But what they lack in volume, they make up for in quality. Old vines can produce truly exceptional wines, and it was a joy to sample several of them.

Of course, not every wine I tasted was memorable for the right reasons. Some didn’t appeal to me due to winemaking choices, and one winery in particular stood out – unfortunately not for good reasons. Their wines were marketed as “natural wines”, yet they were poorly made, oxidised, and very expensive. It reminded me of the ongoing debate around natural wines: just because a bottle is labelled natural or low sulphite doesn’t mean it’s automatically good.

I’ve written before about the risks of poorly made natural wines. At the start of the natural wine trend, many consumers drank wines that were faulty but accepted them as “authentic” because of the label. For me, wine should always be a pleasure to drink – not a chore – regardless of whether it’s organic, biodynamic, or conventionally made.

These particular wines followed a unique winemaking process: grapes were washed before pressing, and no sulphites were added at bottling. While washing grapes has little effect unless they are damaged, not adding sulphites can make a huge difference.

Sulphites occur naturally during fermentation and are widely used in the wine and food industries for their antioxidant and sanitising properties. By law, any wine with more than 10 mg/L of SO2 must carry the “Contains Sulphites” warning. In practice, almost all wines do. To keep sulphites low, grapes must be carefully harvested intact and undamaged.

Over time, sulphite levels naturally decline depending on wine style, storage, and initial levels. In organically grown wines with no added sulphites, levels can eventually drop below the legal threshold – meaning the label doesn’t need the warning. But as I experienced at the fair, that doesn’t guarantee quality. These so-called natural wines were past their prime, oxidised, and overpriced.

The winemaker insisted that the low sulphite content was why people were buying them. But in reality, anyone could achieve the same effect by buying an average organic wine, storing it for a few years, and avoiding the premium price tag.

So while this wine fair was full of exciting discoveries – from young winemakers reviving family vineyards to rare old-vine wines – it was also a reminder: a wine should be judged by its quality in the glass, not by the marketing buzzwords on the label.