JamieGoode: Natural Wines

I very nicely done summary on the "natural" wine movement by JamieGoode:
JamieGoode/NaturalWine

It's a very balanced and objective look at the movement and avoids the polemics we get from scolds like SweetAlice.

As to whether it's a fad or here-to-stay; Jamie posits that "natural" wine as a stand-alone movement is on the wane, but that the rhetoric is about to be ratcheted up with the terms "real,raw, and authentic". So probably SweetAlice is not gonna fade from the stage.

Anyway....a good read I thought.
Tom

[David M. Bueker]

Natural wine has influenced "mainstream wine", though I think what could happen has now happened.

[Robin Garr]

Good article. No trolling there!

Personally, I think I like this paragraph best of all ...

I’m not a social commentator, but I suspect part of the momentum towards natural wine is the nostalgia for a vanished, golden age that never was. But there is more to it than this. The reason that natural wine has caught on so strongly is because of flavour. There’s something distinctive and elegant about many natural wines, and this is what drew me to them in the first place. The best have an elegance that conventional wines only tend to acquire with age.

The best have an elegance that conventional wines only tend to acquire with age.

Is this because...unless there is perfect storage...natural wines undergo spontaneous and unpleasant microbiological combustion?

[Robin Garr]

Is this because...unless there is perfect storage...natural wines undergo spontaneous and unpleasant microbiological combustion?

Not in my rather limited experience, but I suspect that has a lot to do with competency in the vineyard more than "natural" philosophy. I think most of Dressner's wines qualify as "natural," and Posner;s, and a big chunk of the Chambers Street Wines, etc., and I generally prefer those wines for balance, complexity and, yeah, "elegance." Combustion hasn't been an issue for me, but then, it's not like I drink it by the truckload. Oh, and I'm not an Alice-ite, either. Or, I agree with much of what she says but not so much with how she says it.

Fair enough, Robin.

I still remember this wine made by a French Loire Valley Vigneron who from photographs looked like an "urban camper" and who foresook electricity and tractors. REAL natural and primeval wine. Unfortunately, the wine, after initial very nice light gamay fruit, turned really strange-like vinous peanut butter!



Or the Jenny and Francois Import that very appropriately was labeled "the two asses" and smelled violently of barnyard funk. And I LIKE brett!

As I've opined elsewhere, as I've grown older I find that I care less about the narrative of how the wine is made and more about the wine itself. While I'm far from "the truth is in the glass," I find dogmatic issues of sulfur/no sulfur, inoculation/natural yeast or new oak/no new oak to be less interesting than whether the vintner can make a wine of character and distinctiveness that offers pleasure to drink. With that said, it is true that many of my favorite producers do adopt practices that most would characterize as "non-interventionist" or "natural" but it's not those practices that drive the deal for me and I'm certainly not going to get my knickers in a twist if I discover that Trimbach uses inoculation with their CFE Riesling, for example.

Mark Lipton

No matter what, a “conventional” or “natural” produced wine could eventually undergo an “unpleasant microbiological combustion” (the rate at which they get there may vary). It just seems to me that “natural” produced wines “age” at a pace nature intended and “conventional” produced wines “age” at a pace which man thinks is “desirable”. (“Longevity” and “ageing” are actually two different things, but in most cases “longevity” is a prerequisite for “proper ageing”).

Salute