The Wine That Smells of Vinegar

Volatile Acidity, Sulphites, and pH: A Producer's Technical Perspective

The Moment of the "Funky" Wine

My first encounter with what is today called "funky wine" had nothing to do with theoretical discussion or oenological analysis. It was an experience that was purely lived, social, and cultural. It was Paris, around the mid-2010s. In an environment already shaped by the financial crisis, many people were renegotiating their relationship with work and identity. Within that context, a portion of a younger generation abandoned entirely different professional paths and turned towards the land and winemaking — not necessarily as a continuation of family tradition or the result of technical training, but as a deliberate choice to begin again.

What emerged was not simply a continuation of the natural wine movements that had taken shape much earlier in Europe. It was something different in its social character: a new group of producers who often lacked deep technical experience, but had a strong need for expression, experimentation, and personal narrative.

The first wines I encountered from this scene frequently showed visible technical deviations. Oxidation, elevated volatile acidity, and aromatic instability were not uncommon. Yet the experience extended well beyond the glass. Equally defining was the manner of presentation: an intense enthusiasm, an almost emotional pride, as though each bottle represented a personal act of creation.

The labels reinforced this sense. Handmade, simple, or even rough-and-ready, often designed by the producers themselves or their friends, they functioned as an extension of the winemaking act itself. The wine and its image were not easily separated — they formed a single narrative.

Over time, this approach became a recognisable movement. An entire ecosystem grew up around these wines, with specialist wine bars, sommeliers, and consumers seeking not only a tasting experience but a cultural identity. And so the term "funky" began to describe less a technical reality and more an aesthetic category — or at least, that is how I read it.

The Confusion That Followed

As this aesthetic gained popularity, a reductive interpretation emerged: that wines with more pronounced volatile acidity are necessarily more "natural", whilst those with lower levels are more interventionist or technically controlled.

This interpretation is understandable, but analytically problematic. Volatile acidity is not an indicator of philosophy or identity. It is the result of specific microbiological processes that take place during fermentation, ageing, or storage.

A wine can come from organic farming, be fermented with indigenous yeasts, and be bottled with minimal intervention, whilst simultaneously exhibiting very low volatile acidity. Conversely, a wine made with a more conventional approach may, under certain conditions, show elevated VA levels. VA is not an indicator of intention — it is the result of systemic conditions. The issue is not VA itself, but the conflation of two entirely different languages in the discussion surrounding it: biology, which describes what happens, and aesthetics, which describes what it means.

What Volatile Acidity Actually Is

Volatile acidity refers principally to the presence of volatile organic acids, the most significant of which is acetic acid — the same chemical compound that gives vinegar its characteristic smell. In wine, it frequently coexists with ethyl acetate, a compound that can contribute aromatic expressions ranging from fruity and ethereal to more pronounced solvent notes, depending on concentration and the surrounding chemical environment (at low concentrations it presents as red fruit or pear; at high concentrations it recalls nail varnish remover or glue).

Small quantities of volatile acidity are present in almost all wines and, in certain contexts, can contribute to aromatic complexity and a sense of vitality. The critical point is not its presence, but the manner in which it is integrated into the wine's structure.

Its production is associated principally with acetic acid bacteria — chiefly Acetobacter — which convert ethanol into acetic acid in the presence of oxygen. Other microorganisms are also involved: Brettanomyces, known for its characteristic barnyard aromas, also produces acetic acid as a by-product of its metabolism, whilst certain lactic acid bacteria can, through specific metabolic pathways, secondarily influence volatile acidity. This multiplicity of sources means that VA is never the result of a single factor.

Oxygen remains a decisive variable. A wine's exposure to it, combined with pH, alcohol potential, hygiene conditions, and technical management during winemaking and ageing, directly influence how VA develops.

In certain winemaking approaches, particularly at small-scale production, volatile acidity is not treated exclusively as something to be avoided, but as an element that can be integrated into the overall sensory profile. This was the approach I applied with the Sous le Végétal wines, where VA was treated as part of a unified structural whole and evaluated primarily through the wine's behaviour over time and in the bottle.

It is worth noting that the sensory threshold for detecting volatile acidity is often lower than the legal limits in force in most countries. A wine may fall entirely within international technical limits whilst VA remains perceptibly present in the final profile.

From Microbiology to Market Standards — How VA Became a "Fault"

The classification of volatile acidity as a sensory fault did not emerge from a single decision or a unified definition. It took shape gradually, through the intersection of microbiological science, the industrial development of wine, and the need for commercial stability in an increasingly globalised trade. To understand what we are actually debating today, a brief excursion into history is necessary.

A pivotal role in this process was played by the work of Louis Pasteur in the nineteenth century. Through his study of fermentation, he demonstrated that wine is not a static chemical liquid but a biological system in which microorganisms can determine both its production and its spoilage. The connection he established between bacterial presence and acetic acid production provided the first scientific framework for understanding acetic deterioration.

As wine production and distribution expanded internationally — particularly through the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century — stability became a critical concern. Wines were transported over long distances and often under difficult conditions. In this context, elevated volatile acidity became repeatedly associated with spoilage during transit or storage.

At the same time, advances in analytical chemistry introduced the possibility of quantifying quality. VA was gradually incorporated as one of the principal indicators of microbiological stability and oxidative risk. When organisations such as the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) began harmonising technical standards during the twentieth century, the permissible limits were not created as a philosophical definition of wine, but as the codification of an existing practical consensus between science, sensory evaluation, and market requirements. And over time, those standards shaped — to a considerable degree — the perception of what a wine is supposed to taste like.

Enter Sulphites — and Why the Relationship Is Causal

Any serious discussion of volatile acidity leads almost inevitably to sulphites. And the connection between them is not merely correlative — it is causal, and it deserves to be explained with precision.

Sulphur dioxide (SO₂) acts in wine on two levels: as an antioxidant and as an antimicrobial agent. At the second level, its effectiveness depends critically on pH. At low pH values, a greater proportion of total SO₂ remains in free, molecular form — this is the biologically active form that inhibits bacteria and undesirable yeasts. At higher pH, the same quantity of SO₂ becomes bound in inactive forms and offers substantially less protection. In other words: two wines with identical total sulphite levels may have entirely different degrees of microbial protection, depending on their respective pH.

This mechanism connects sulphites directly to VA: Acetobacter and Brettanomyces — the principal producers of acetic acid in wine — are precisely the populations that free SO₂ inhibits. A producer who opts for zero sulphites assumes a heightened microbial risk, which must be compensated for through other means: low pH, rigorous hygiene, limited oxygen exposure, and the health of the raw material. This is neither good nor bad — it is simply true.

Sulphites are used widely in food technology as antioxidant and antimicrobial agents — in dried fruits, fruit juices, jams, and preserved foods. They are not an invention of modern industrial oenology; their use in wine predates that context by centuries.

In specific terroirs, such as Samos, the combined influence of vineyard site, microclimate, and careful fruit selection both at harvest and in the winery can create conditions that support production with minimal or zero added sulphites. This is not based on ideological choice, but on a system of parameters — low pH, raw material integrity, rigorous selection — that reduce microbiological and oxidative risk without chemical intervention.

The critical point is not the opposition between "sulphites or no sulphites", but the understanding of the system through which each producer manages the balance between microbial control, oxidation, and sensory identity.

The International Debate Today

Volatile acidity sits at the intersection of science and aesthetics — and the regulations reflect this tension. The European Union sets maximum limits of 1.08 g/l for white wines and 1.20 g/l for reds, whilst the United States (TTB) applies a single limit of 1.40 g/l. The OIV proposes similar frameworks, with variations by category and wine type. These are limits that reflect commercial and microbiological logic — not aesthetic preference.

Meanwhile, the debate within the natural wine world has grown considerably more nuanced over the past decade. Alice Feiring, one of the most influential voices in favour of wines made without additives, has consistently argued that VA — when it is the result of living fermentation rather than inadequate control — constitutes an expression of terroir rather than a fault. From the opposite position, Jamie Goode, who combines scientific training with wine criticism, has argued repeatedly that tolerance of high VA frequently confuses conscious aesthetic choice with technical failure — and that this confusion serves neither the producer nor the consumer.

An increasing number of professionals — sommeliers, importers, critics — now explicitly distinguish between high VA as a deliberate aesthetic choice and high VA as the result of insufficient control. The difference lies not only in intensity, but in the role it plays within the wine's final profile — and, above all, in whether the producer is able to explain it technically.

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Design or Default

Returning to the aesthetic dimension from which this discussion began, it becomes clear that much of what today is described as "style" or "movement" in wine amounts to little more than different ways of reading the same reality. Volatile acidity, sulphites, and choices around intervention or non-intervention acquire meaning not only as technical parameters, but as elements of a broader aesthetic language shaped by history and culture.

The so-called "funky" aesthetic, like any other aesthetic in wine, is neither a universal standard nor a unified system of values. It is a specific expression that, in certain moments and places, became particularly visible and influential. This does not, however, make it an interpretive framework for natural wine as a whole, nor can it function as the sole measure of understanding so complex a field.

In the end, wine remains an object in which technical reality and aesthetic perception coexist without ever fully coinciding. And perhaps the most useful point is not to choose between these readings, but to recognise when one is attempting to explain something that belongs to the other.

When aesthetics becomes dogma, it ceases to explain wine and begins to simplify it — because the real problem is not the existence of different aesthetics in wine, but the moment they are mistaken for absolute truths.