ABSTRACT
This chapter presents rawness as an aesthetic attribute of wine. It analyses the apparent conflict between nature and aesthetics in the wineworld today, and its background. Discussing the movement referred to as 'raw wine', the chapter seeks to create a conceptual space for authenticity, or rawness, among the aesthetic attributes of wine. The 'natural wine' movement appears to differ from similar movements among wine producers in two main ways: an intolerance of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and a willingness to sacrifice aesthetic values on the altar of nature. A 'natural wine' is aesthetically successful in and through precisely those sensory properties typical of natural wines. It is both geographical and aesthetic identifying one set of aesthetic attributes as the typical and desirable ones in the wines from a more or less narrow geographical origin. When properly understood the phenomenon of natural wine provides an invaluable moment of reflection on the conditions for the appreciation of wine.
