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The Making of Natural Wine in Spain: The Legal and Cultural History book cover

1st Edition

The Making of Natural Wine in Spain The Legal and Cultural History

By Pablo Alonso González Copyright 2027
192 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book explains how “natural wine” was made and not discovered by Spanish lawmakers, chemists, merchants, and theologians, showing how Spain consolidated a legal construct that normalized specific technical interventions while preserving the label natural. The book argues that wine labeled as “natural” was not the preservation of a traditional product but the product of a legal fiction that... Read more

1. Introduction

2. From Protectionism to Free Trade (and to Enological Awakening): The Redefinition of Wine “Adulteration” (1849–1860)

3. The Rise of Artificial Wine in Spain and the Paradigm of Public Health (1860–1890)

4. Artificial Wine Is Prohibited. Long Live Artificial Wine!: The 1890–1895 Debate

5. What Madrid Drinks: Wines, Fraud, and Public Health

6. Legislating Authenticity: Wine, Science, and the State in Spain (1895–1915)

7. Resistance to Artifice: Vitalism and the Defense of Natural Wine “without Additives”

8. Natural by Law: The Politics of Industrial Wine in Spain, 1915–1932

9. Conclusion

Biography

Pablo Alonso González is Senior Researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (IPNA-CSIC), where he leads the Social Sciences, Heritage and Food Research Group (SOCIALPAT). He specializes in wine history, food regulation, and cultural heritage, and is the author of Uncorked: Negotiating Science and Belief in the Natural Wine Movement (2025). He has been awarded a prestigious Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council and is a member of the Spanish Young Academy (AJE).

"The Making of Natural Wine in Spain reveals that today’s 'natural wine' debate is anything but new. Through meticulous research, Pablo Alonso traces its legal and cultural roots back more than 150 years, transforming a contemporary controversy into a compelling modern history of wine, authenticity, and regulation."

Clara Isamat, Sommelier and natural wine communicator

"In Pablo Alonso González’s capable hands, the question of natural wine emerges as a question about nature itself. A meticulously but engagingly told story."

Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University Preface

"This volume marks the brilliant culmination of González’s indefatigable study of natural wine, seamlessly interweaving historical, anthropological, legal, and cultural strands. The insights drawn from González’s nuanced treatment of Spain, showcased here, will be of broad interest to scholars of wine history across regions and traditions."

Kevin D. Goldberg, Historian, contributor to The Wine Atlas of Germany

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