Low Intervention
Low intervention means intervening as little as possible in the cellar, and only when there is a clear reason to do so. The term does not refer to a fixed set of rules, nor is it the same as natural wine. At its core is a simple decision-making logic: every intervention must be justified. And those who want to correct little must work all the more precisely in the vineyard and with hygiene, because restraint in the cellar demands more care, not less.
In the cellar, there are a whole host of tools that can be used to shape a wine. Low Intervention means consciously foregoing as many of them as possible, but not all of them, and not at any price. Which interventions one omits and which one retains is the real work behind the term.
Which interventions are meant
Common interventions include enriching with sugar, correcting acidity, using cultured yeasts instead of the vineyard's own yeasts, fining for clarification, filtration, adding enzymes, or concentrating the must. Each of these steps can be useful, and each moves the wine a little closer to a controllable, easily repeatable result. Low Intervention starts precisely here: using as few of these levers as possible and letting the grapes determine the result, as far as they can bear it. It is important to note that abstaining from intervention is also a decision with consequences, because where technology recedes, time, microflora, and oxygen take over control, and the result becomes less predictable.
Why restraint in the cellar begins in the vineyard
Less intervention is only possible if the starting material allows it. Healthy, physiologically ripe grapes, a well-thought-out yield, and meticulous cleanliness during fermentation and aging are prerequisites for being able to do without corrections. If this foundation is missing, restraint quickly turns into loss of control. Therefore, Low Intervention shifts the effort more to the front, into the vineyard and into hygiene, instead of catching it later in the cellar through technology. This is also why the same restraint in a difficult year turns out quite differently than in a ripe one.
Not the same as natural wine
Natural wine is often defined by prohibitions: no added sulfur, no fining, no filtration. Low Intervention, on the other hand, asks about the purpose. An intervention is not fundamentally rejected, but rather measured by whether it truly helps the wine in that particular year. This means that even a small, targeted addition of sulfur remains possible if it keeps a wine stable, a question we address in more detail under Sulfites.
How we handle it
For us, this specifically means: parcel-by-parcel work in the vineyard, spontaneous fermentationwith the yeasts that live on the grapes and in the cellar anyway, and a calm aging process that gives the wine time. Where an intervention is necessary, such as a gentle filtrationbefore bottling, we make it consciously and as targeted as possible. The goal is not purity as a principle, but a wine that reveals its vintage and parcel.
Understood this way, Low Intervention is neither a seal of quality nor a guarantee of quality. A wine made with restraint can be great or impure, depending on how carefully the decisions were made beforehand. Ultimately, foregoing technology does not mean less work, but a different kind of responsibility and a willingness to accept a wine as the vintage shapes it.