Imagine the most extraordinary location for a vineyard that you can. Got an image in mind? Well, we think Cantine dell’Averno, a four-hectare vineyard in Pozzuoli, has it beat: Not only are its vines growing inside the caldera of a volcano that is theoretically still active, but they also surround the ruins of a Greek temple. We are on the shores of Lake Avernus, a volcanic lake that formed thousands of years ago and is part of the wider Campanian volcanic arc, which includes the Phlegraean Fields. It’s a place shrouded in an aura of mystery – legends and tales about this somewhat eerie body of water have been passed down since antiquity.

It’s a crisp and cold winter morning in Alentejo. We are in Mora, a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Lisbon, to visit Susana Esteban’s winery, a very simple adega where her award-winning wines are made. Susana welcomes us at the door and leads us inside, where, sitting among the barrels, we taste her wines. They leave a strong impression on us, and not just because of the early hour – the wines have a distinct personality, one that’s formed on the vine. Yet when we peek outside, there are no vineyards in sight, only oak and cork trees. That’s because Susana grows her grapes in Serra de São Mamede, a mountain range in Portalegre, one-hour east of Mora and close to the Spanish border.

Ènek poured a rosy-colored splash of wine into our glasses, avidly explaining how this particular Aladasturi grape vine was meticulously cultivated in its native west Georgia. In a tasting ritual uncommon in Georgia, we swirled it, sniffed it and savored the flavor as it caressed our tongues. Here in the “cradle of wine,” the land where viticulture is believed to have originated 8,000 years ago, wine is customarily poured into a water glass and “tasted” in one long drag, until drained. But in this cozy cellar in the heart of Tbilisi’s historic Sololaki neighborhood, seven winemakers have come together to offer an alternative convention to winemaking and consumption. They call it Vino Underground, but we call it wine heaven.

It is impossible not to look at the history of Quinta de Covela, a winery in Portugal’s Douro Verde region that has faced misfortune, gotten some lucky breaks and survived tricks of fate, as a masterpiece of literature, one that could easily be adapted to the cinema. In fact, the area around the winery already has ties to both genres: It inspired A Cidade e as Serras, the last work of José Maria de Eça de Queiroz, the 19th-century writer who is one of the towering figures of Portuguese literature. And it was here that famous Portuguese film director Manoel de Oliveira bought a large swath of property to prove himself a worthy candidate for the hand of Maria Isabel Carvalhais, the woman who would become his wife.

Naked, free, wild, raw, true, clean… natural wine has many names, except its most obvious one, just plain ol’ wine. There’s no makeup or camouflage, nor is there any sort of artificial interference – chemical fertilizers or industrial yeasts, to name a few – in the vineyards or during the vinification process. Some consider this wine to be a passing fashion, but it has more than a solid foothold in its homelands – France, Georgia and, to a lesser extent, Italy – and continues to conquer palates in new countries. One of those countries is Spain, where natural wine is proving to be a popular alternative to industrial vino, which must adhere to regulations set by the Denominaciones de Origen (D.O., the organizations that oversee the mainstream wine regions in Spain) and has a limited and fixed personality often based on artificial yeast and processes.