Sulfur Who? These Wineries Are Using Natural Alternatives

BY KATE DINGWALL7 MIN READ. THE WINE ENTHUSIAST

The idea for Lumen’s ginger wine was born, as all good ideas are, at a party. 

Winemaker Lane Tanner had acquired excellent ginger from a holiday in Hawaii. She had friends over, cooked with it, and wondered what to do with the leftovers. Wouldn’t it be really cool to make a ginger-infused wine?

She poured Chardonnay in a Tupperware, added ginger, and popped it in her fridge. “Of course, it got pushed to the back and forgotten,” laughs her colleague Will Henry.

A few months later, when Tanner found it, she discovered something strange. “It was the craziest thing,” says Henry. “She said, ‘The wine is as fresh as the day I pulled the cork. It didn’t oxidize at all.’ She got goosebumps.”

A fluke turned into a few sample batches of Chardonnay spiked with ginger. A few years later, Lumen is using ginger instead of traditional sulfites. 

The Great Sulfite Debate

Sulfites are controversial. On one side, many winemakers argue that sulfur dioxide (SO₂) is essential for making a stable, ageable wine. It stops oxidation, preserves the wine, and battles bad microbes. Others argue that sulfites mask the character, identity, and expression of a wine, or that it gives drinkers headaches.

“Sulfites absolutely work to preserve and stabilize wine for long-term enjoyment, but they can also have an impact on color and aromatic intensity,” says Paulien Lhote, the winemaking director at Chandon.

Winemakers have been looking at alternatives. They’re playing with everything from green tea to chestnut flowers to alternative yeasts to find a viable substitute for sulfurs—ones that preserve the wine but don’t override flavors.

Tyzok Wharton, of Carboy Winery in Colorado, uses a range of practices other than sulphurs. In aromatic white wines, he opts for a blend of ascorbic acid andtannins. He’ll also use amphoras, which allow natural micro-oxygenation, to ferment and age wines. In sparkling wines, Carboy leaves the wine in contact with lees, which offer some antioxidant protection. 

Lhote is sampling non-Saccharomyces yeasts, added during grape processing. “In blind tastings following this year’s trials, we have seen increased aromatic intensity in some non-SO₂ samples,” says Lhote. 

“My father always said to me, if somebody can come up with a natural alternative to using sulfur in wines, they’ll create a revolution in the industry,” says Henry. 

Below, learn more about the ingredients that winemakers are using as sulfur alternatives. 

Ginger

Lumen’s Hey Ginger! Wines are made by sourcing local ginger, masticating it in a food processor, adding it to large cheese cloth bags, and steeping it in the wine for several days. 

Lumen’s ginger wines do taste ginger-y but not aggressively so—a pét-nat, a Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir are subtly floral with a kiss of spice. Wine Enthusiast’s Tasting Department designated the 90-point Chardonnay as a coveted “Editors’ Choice” pick. In his review, Writer-at-Large Matt Kettmann says, “The nose shows baked peach, lemon syrup, and floral aromas, hinting at that ginger. The palate rides deeper into that spicy floral flavor, with stone fruit and intriguingly savory hints of parmesan rind.” 

Will ginger wine be the next big thing? Perhaps not, but it is a promising alternative to sulfur. 

Look back through history—the ancient Romans would use honey and botanicals as a preservative in wine. “Beer markets have been doing this for decades,” says Henry. 

“The wine industry is a funny thing … gatekeepers of the industry do not think that there should be anything perceptible in the flavor of wine other than grapes themselves,” he says. “It’s funny how we’re such purists when it comes to making wine.”

Chestnut Flower

Roberto Mascarin, founder of Azienda Agricola San Valentino, seeks to make transparent wines that are faithful to grape and land. “Over time, I developed the feeling that while sulfites are an effective and historically fundamental tool, they can sometimes act as a filter, slightly softening the wine’s natural expression,” he says. 

So he looked elsewhere. 

“The ultimate goal was to find a balance between stability and the ability to evolve over time, without giving up wines that feel more alive, legible, and authentic,” he continues. 

He landed on Chestwine, a powder made from male chestnut flowers that reduces oxidation and microbial growth. The ingredient was developed by Portuguese company Tree Flower Solutions.

“This immediately caught my attention because it wasn’t a theoretical solution, but an approach rooted in a natural raw material and a clearly defined scientific principle,” says Mascarin. 

There were initial hesitations and early learning curves, “particularly around managing timing, oxygen, and different wine styles,” he says. “Chestwine is not a ‘plug-and-play’ product; it requires attention, sensitivity, and a deep understanding of cellar dynamics.” 

At the moment it’s expensive, but there’s demand. A 2017 study from the University of Naples Federico II showed that over 40% of consumers are willing to pay more for wines without added sulfites. 

“At a time when there is a great deal of discussion around ‘no-sulfites’ wines, Chestwine represents for me a concrete and pragmatic solution, not a trend,” he says. “It allows for greater precision in protecting the wine while maintaining stability and the ability to evolve—both essential elements for a wine producer.”

Chitosan

Rosie Fierro, of Livermore’s Rosa Fierro Cellars, uses chitosan, a natural sugar supplement often found on the outer skeleton of crustaceans that’s cultivated for its antibacterial and antifungal properties. 

Winemakers are drawn to it as a natural fining agent that inhibits things like brettanomyces.

Fierro discovered it when she was struggling with high-volatile acidity (VA) in her wines. “I didn’t want to overdose my wines with SO₂,” she says. “When I learned you could use chitosan in addition to SO₂ to control spoilage, I was very excited.”

Another big benefit: you can add it at any stage of the winemaking process. “I can use it on must to control spoilage bacteria, and it won’t impact alcoholic or malolactic fermentation,” says Fierro. “You can treat your wine post-malolactic fermentation to reduce any bacterial issues before barreling down the wine. You can use it on stuck fermentations and as an alternative to using Lysozyme. It just sounded too good to be true!”

Green Tea

At LoveBlock Wine in Marlborough, New Zealand, founder-winemaker Erica Crawford uses green tea extracts as a natural preservative and an alternative to sulfur. 

It makes sense, given that green tea is known for its antioxidant properties. So Crawford and team now add it at every step of the process, from harvest to crush to filtering and bottling. 

She started in 2019 with her Sauvignon Blanc and is looking at other alternatives for her portfolio—she’s noticed South African wineries have used similar extracts, like rooibos and honeybush teas.

Egide and Alt-Yeasts

Other winemakers are working with alternative yeasts to fill the role sulfites typically play. 

Sasha Burdujan, the winemaker at Wood Family Vineyards, uses Egide, a bioprotection product made from a blend of two non-Saccharomyces yeast strains, Torulaspora delbrueckii and Metschnikowia pulcherrima.

He was drawn to a sulfite alternative like Egide for two main reasons: color stability and aromatic expression. “SO₂ additions on grapes can suppress some fruity esters and fresh aromatics that are important to our wine style,” he says. “We want our wines to showcase not only aromas developed during fermentation and aging, but also the fresh, fruit-driven character authentic to our vineyards.”

It was a departure from the negative attributes of sulfur, which Burdujan notes can deter native yeast populations (they try to work with indigenous fermentations) and can increase the extraction of bitter phenolic compounds. 

Since he started trialing the product in 2022, he’s noticed fresher wines with lower volatile acidity.