“We were wrong about natural wine.” Overheard at TexSom.

Arguably the most interesting thing overheard by an intrepid wine blogger at TexSom this year was the following.

Wine sales are down, observed one speaker at a break-out session. But natural wine sales continue to stay steady. We need to start looking at natural wine as a way to answer the current demand for wine.

This was followed by something said wine blogger never thought they would hear uttered by a leading U.S. wine professional, words spoken by someone who runs a high-end wine program in an upscale market.

I don’t mind giving my guests a wine that I find defective if that’s what they want. I now have a natural wine by-the-glass on my list, they said.

Wow. I mean, just wow!

Beyond my own mixed feelings about natural wine, I believe that the wine industry passed up and over a golden opportunity when the category began to take shape in the U.S. in the late 2000s.

Natural wine remains the one partition of the trade that continues to attract younger people.

Just think about it: if I offer my 21-year-old Californian niece a by-the-glass of a natural wine and a glass of conventional wine at the same time, which is she going to lean toward? It’s a no-brainer.

Leaving discussion of what is natural wine? (and what is conventional wine?) aside, wine called “natural” is the only growing part of the business.

But now our community faces an even more daunting issue: tariffs are eliminating the small businesses that brought those wines to the U.S. If U.S. trade policy doesn’t change, it’s conceivable and even probable that many natural wine importers will shutter in the next 12 months. We’ll just have to see who’s still standing after OND — October, November, December, the trimester when 50 percent of all wines sales happen in this country.

Will big wine step up to the challenge? At least one leading one professional — one who people listen to — is calling for change.