The Making of Natural Wine in Spain: The Legal and Cultural History (Routledge Food Studies)

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 allowed wines with additives to be normalized and protected under law.In doing so, the book explores the emergence and changing meanings of natural wine.Rather than providing a fixed definition, it analyzes how the boundaries of “natural” shifted from period to period.It shows how natural wine ended up being used in the historical- legal sense that crystallized in late nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Spain and culminated in 1932.Through detailed archival research, the book explores debates around adulteration, chemistry, purity, and authenticity, using historical food studies and legal an