摘要

In the 1980s in France, a group of winegrowers started to work in a “natural” way in reaction to the massive diffusion of synthetic chemicals and the introduction of what they saw as too much technology in the way wine was made. A network was gradually built up and eventually took off at the beginning of the 2000s. Now well-established in France, it keeps gathering new followers among wine professionals and consumers. The phenomenon is gradually affecting all the vineyards of the world and a worldwide network of “natural” winegrowers has recently been set up. Broadly speaking, “natural” winegrowing is based on the absence of chemical inputs and the principle of “least intervention”, so as to empower the vine itself and produce “healthy” wines. Depending on the winegrowers, it can be associated with biodynamic practices to various degrees. “Natural” winegrowers’ practices are dynamic and evolving. They have access to a set of tools and ideas that stem both from academic knowledge (for instance, the works on microbiology and chemistry of the winemaker and researcher Jules Chauvet) and from knowledge from the sensible world (in which biodynamics, as well as other forms of empirical and/or spiritual knowledge, can be classified). However, if the contributions of positivist sciences are not excluded, they do not serve the same purposes as in conventional winegrowing. These winegrowers’ use of academic knowledge does not aim at mastering life to obtain better yields, but rather at obtaining a better knowledge of life to optimize the different forms of dialogue they can have with it. This is why they do not hesitate to combine different sources of knowledge to feed their experiments in the vineyards and the cellars. Integral to the praxis of “natural” winegrowing, this element of research takes an increasingly important role in the context of climate change. To create a better connection to living things, these winemakers borrow from ancient farming practices.