Joe Dressner, an importer whose advocacy of Old World wines made without chemicals or manipulation inspired a sort of natural wine avant-garde, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 60.

The cause was brain cancer, his son, Jules, said.

Mr. Dressner’s Manhattan-based company, Louis/Dressner Selections, which he formed in 1988 with his wife, Denyse Louis, specialized in wines from France and Italy that he variously termed real, natural, authentic or heirloom.

In an era when most wines are made with grapes grown in chemically farmed vineyards and then manipulated with cultured yeasts and other chemicals and enzymes, Mr. Dressner championed wines that were expressions of local cultures, made from grapes grown organically or in rough approximation to it. In the cellar, nothing was added or taken away. The winemaker simply shepherded the grape juice along its natural path through fermentation.

In the last 10 years, interest in these wines, prompted by Mr. Dressner and others, has grown tremendously. Though they make up a relatively small slice of the marketplace, the wines have had a disproportionate influence, filtering into the mainstream by way of sommeliers, writers and other importers. At the same time, they have stirred up polarizing debates about grape growing, winemaking, wine criticism and marketing.