The heavyweights of the wine industry have finally entered the arena. Penfolds and Treasury Wine Estates, the notorious 13 Crimes gangsters, are set to make their mark in the natural wine market. It's a development that has left many shocked and stunned, but not entirely surprised. The only question is: why has it taken them so long to arrive?

At a few natural wine events in Alsace last year, the penny dropped that the likes of Hardys, Gallo, and Penfolds would eventually infiltrate the market. I remember standing at the back of large crowds gathered around winemakers' benches, fighting to get to the front with glasses extended. It was a busy, young crowd, and absolute mayhem - thousands upon thousands of people trying to buy whatever they could get their hands on, including bad wine at a starting price of around 20 euros.

Some of the winemakers were newbies, producing their first vintage with no prior winemaking experience or vineyard. They were working as negotiants, and some of their wines had added sulphates. Some had no idea what was used in the growing of grapes, yet their starting price was 25 euros, and they sold out.

After just an hour at one of these events, I left with the feeling that any large commercial winemaker attending would immediately announce they were entering the natural wine business at their Monday morning staff meeting.

Reading an article today about the beginning of the end of the term "natural wine" caused my initial rage to subside. I realized that it might not be such a bad thing. Infighting, egos, and self-importance have hindered natural winemakers from coming together to create some sort of standardization, accreditation, and general controls over their wine.

Instead, we're left with Demeter, some organically certified wines from a myriad of regulators, and some "Vin de France" because some winemakers think they're superior to all of these agencies or don't like some of their peers. Some winemakers don't think the people controlling the processes used in the vineyards and cellar are strict enough, and that it's not really as natural as it should be.

Now, any winemaker without accreditation is left with their proverbial appendage in their hands. Treasury Wine Estates have fired the starter pistol, and like a tech company AI arms race with zero regulation or due diligence, we'll soon have a flood of natural wines on the market from all the big players in about six months.

The problem is there's no regulation on what can be defined as a natural wine. Technically, anything that's not a synthetic wine could be called a natural wine. After all, it's made from grapes that are natural, so no agency can restrict mass-produced wine from labeling itself as "natural."

On a positive note, we may be about to see an explosion of certified organic and Demeter wines, which can only be a good thing. No doubt, we'll have people say, "well, it's not real natural wine," but that doesn't matter when you're marketing to the same people that think saving the planet means driving an electric car, drinking soya milk produced from soya grown in reclaimed areas of the Amazon basin, and eating imported avocados from Peru with a carbon footprint of a small family car.

True natural winemakers need to stop bickering, set their egos aside, and come together to create standardized regulations. The big boys are already printing funky natural wine labels as we speak.