Natural Wine masterclass at Vagabond Wines
NATURAL WINE TASTING @ VAGABOND
“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.”
- Alice Walker
The term natural wine is useful for certain reasons. The term is by no means definitive, but is intended to highlight growers who work in a particular fashion, with minimal mediation, ideally to obtain the purest articulation of terroir in the wine. The expression implies that there are wines which are either unnatural, or less natural. This distinction is fundamental to the debate about the way that the wine proceeds from the vine to the bottle.
Ideally, natural wines are made in small quantities by artisan or independent producers from organically grown grapes in low yielding vineyards and then made without sugar, artificial yeasts or enzymes, or recourse to acidification or other adjustments. Most natural wines are neither filtered nor fined. The few that are will either be filtered extremely lightly or fined with organic egg-white. Many are made with only tiny amounts of added sulphur and some with none at all. Nowt taken out and nowt put in.
One would have thought that wine would be natural by definition, however, there’s many a slip (or intervention) between grape and bottle, many choices that can be made, and additions and manipulations that push the final wine further from its origins. But the word natural does not only mean produced by nature without human assistance, it is the very nature (sic) of assistance, the degree of human interference that distinguishes a natural wine from a conventional one.
There is no such thing as completely natural wine since without someone to make it there would obviously be no wine. Grapes are natural, wine is not. Given that there must be some sort of human intervention, any definition of natural wine is just a line in the sand. The most natural possible wine would be vinegar. Natural wine is then a relative term, natural in the sense that it aims at naturalness, and in the sense that it is more natural than other types of wine. Broadly speaking what natural wines have in common is purity and honesty of expression. They taste of the grapes from which they are made and the place where they have grown. Natural wine makers are gentle interpreters…
“I don’t like the word winemaker. It doesn’t mean anything to me. You make shoes; you don’t make wine. I prefer to call myself a “wine helper” You help the wine make itself. That’s how I consider my job. That’s the way to keep a low profile – under nature, under the climate, under the fruit. Wine is a great gift.”
Louis Barruol – quoted in The New France – Andrew Jefford
The natural process necessarily begins with an enlightened approach to viticulture. Conventional chemically controlled agriculture damages the fertility of the soil, releases large amounts of toxic chemicals into the ecosystem, and encourages resistance in the pests it seeks to control. It is also detrimental to the quality of the harvested crop.
Organic viticulture is the minimum requirement for natural wine. It is essential to create the preconditions for a living soil. Luc de Conti describes the deadening effect of modern agricultural methods: “The soil is lifeless, a cadaver”. First it is necessary to rid the ground of toxins, then nourish it with revitalizing remedies. Biodynamics, with its homeopathic preparations and supranatural solutions is one path, its prescriptive, holistic philosophy wholly endorsed by some growers, partially espoused by others, determined to bring their vineyards to full health. However, it does not specify what the winemaker should do in the winery; because even with beautiful grapes, the winemaker can “unmake” the wine.
A wine is not great simply because it is natural. Not every vineyard is capable of producing a great wine. But organic farming and natural winemaking is the way to get the best out of a vineyard, whatever its potential. A natural wine is born in a healthy, sustainable vineyard. The natural vigneron will be dedicated to the life of the soil, the search for or rediscovery of terroir; he or she will favour selection massale, promote historic or autochthonous grape varieties, seek vine health through natural balance and respect the variability of vintages. Knowledge of the vineyard, every plot, each patch of soil, each vine in relation to its microclimate is essential. The skilled (and intuitive) vigneron will help bring the vineyard (and the vines therein) to a natural balance.
It has been proved irrefutably that vineyards which are not sprayed with chemicals yield healthier and better quality grapes than those that do. All natural wine is the product of sustainable agriculture. A great natural wine can only be made on land that has been farmed organically for many years as the vine needs to derive its nourishment from a living soil, one that is full of microbial activity.
Sustainability also has an ethical dimension – the vine should not be a monoculture and natural wine can only be made in a context where the land is respected and biodiversity is the key. Natural wine is better for the environment because the vigneron is not trying to take out more than what nature will give.
A natural winemaker is a genuine artisan. Natural winemaking requires skill, patience, nerve, and hard physical labour. In most cases it brings small financial rewards. There is more money, less risk, and far less work in making wine conventionally. Only someone passionately committed to the idea of natural wine would choose to work in this way. These people deserve our support. In an age of mass production and homogeneity, craftsmanship should be cherished. Natural winemakers will never be able to churn out the number of bottles needed to supply a chain of supermarkets or high street off-licenses, for example. The wines are not created according to profile; there is no guarantee of consistency even from wines from the same vintage, the wines are inherently fragile – this mutability makes them wonderful; they are living wines rather than sterile, homogenous products.
Where natural wines are most distinct is in their use (or relative lack) of sulphur in the winemaking process. Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is the most widely used and controversial additive in winemaking. Its main functions are to inhibit or kill unwanted yeasts and bacteria, and to protect wine from oxidation. SO2 is added at several points in the process of conventional vinification and is present in the finished wine in the form of sulphites. Sulphites occur naturally in all living things and are present in small quantities even in unsulphured wines. They can cause potentially fatal allergic reactions.
The systematic use of sulphur dioxide to control fermentation and to stabilise the wine at bottling was perfected by the French in North Africa early in the twentieth century. It was a way of making wine in conditions that were essentially too hot. This approach quickly caught on in other climates, as a way of making wine without having to worry about it.
The risks of not using sulphur are such that very few winemakers are prepared to take them. Without the preservatives and sterilisation techniques used in conventional wine, natural wine is also more at risk from spoilage. This possibility is drastically reduced by careful handling. The myth that sulphur dioxide is always necessary needs to be corrected. In certain circumstances sulphur dioxide is the only option. Used at bottling in homeopathic doses it does little or no damage to the flavour of the wine, and can help to protect it from being mishandled. The majority of our natural winemakers work in this way.
Oxidation is the reaction of wine with oxygen. It can alter its colour and odour (tending to make wines darker and dryer) and is often dismissed as a fault. Whilst excessive oxidation does ruin wine controlled oxidisation can add complexity, and is crucial to certain styles (certain sherries, for example, and the vins de voile of the Jura). It is also an important part of the ageing process. This is why most wine authorities will tell you that it is impossible to make a wine which ages well without using sulphur dioxide. The SO2 drastically inhibits the process of oxidation. Whether what you have is a wine which ages well, or merely one which ages slowly, is a moot point.
All wines contain sulphur dioxide in various forms, collectively known as sulphites. Even in completely unsulphured wine it is present at concentrations of up to 10 milligrams per litre. Commercially-made wines contain from ten to twenty times that amount. There are several reasons why the addition of sulphur dioxide is not entirely desirable. It has an unpleasant smell, like that of a struck match, detectable at very low concentrations. Secondly, it can cause allergic reactions and has been linked with numerous other health problems, including hangovers.
Some people try never to use SO2. This is a small world of adventurers, whose wines stir up polemics and comments, because they result from excess and doubt: stars rub shoulders with failures. It is undeniable that, when successful, those cuvées provide incomparable feeling, because they achieve an aromatic finesse, ethereal and pure, truly superior, and so it is impossible to tell amongst good winegrowers who bottled the same wine with or without sulphites, like Marcel Lapierre in Beaujolais or Thierry Allemand in Cornas. And their argument is an ethical one. Wine is a product of nature; it is the winemaker’s obligation to keep the unique signature of the terroir alive, not to destroy in order to create. Thus all additions to the wine are eschewed and sulphur is kept to a minimum.
But, like unpasteurised cheeses, those extreme wines are fresh products, alive, fragile. They need cold storage: they must always be under 15oC. They are sometimes subject to “off” periods of several months, when the yeasts “devour” each other. When just opened, the carbonic gas needs to evaporate as it can disturb less-experienced wine drinkers. These wines are exceptional and need to be handled with care. I find that chilling the wines in the fridge for half an hour and decanting it a good option.
Too many winegrowers go into working “without sulphur” with imprudence. “I’m fed up with those jokers whose wine doesn’t hold up one bottle in two!!” complained the owner of one of the most famous organic wine bars in Paris. Aside from some unforgettable miracles, how many broken, faded, oxidized beverages are there, when the main aim is to protect the fruit or the purity of the terroir! The issue is never simply a choice or whether you sulphur or not; it involves creating the preconditions for having that choice available. This, in turn, involves scrupulous attention to detail in the vineyard with organic viticulture, low yields, everything done by hand, triage – everything designed to make the vine more self-reliant and to promote deeper root systems. The most articulate advocate of non-interventionist wine-making is the unquestioned pope of the non-sulphur, Pierre Overnoy. This monument to self-effacement has been vinifying his sumptuous, supremely age-worthy Arbois without SO2 for decades. He explains that working “without sulphur”, is possible “when the vines, ploughed for years, have deep roots that give minerality and natural acidity which protects the wines and which chemicals fertilizers bring down”, when the harvest is “healthy, clean and sorted”, when the yeasts “alive, emit natural sulphites when the wine needs them”… In brief, working “without sulphur”, for the winegrower as well as for the consumer, “is not a commencement, it’s a closure”.
Some people fixate more about what is right or rather what they believe to be right rather than try to understand what is. It is as if the wine has to exist with a certain spectrum of accessibility. Occasionally, journalists feel obliged to second-guess “the average consumer”. The average consumer is never going to be exposed to exciting and unusual wines unless those wines are given some sort of publicity.
We love these wines for their faults; in fact their faults make them what they are. Made with wild yeasts, handled gently without filtration or addition of sulphur, the wines are alive, constantly in flux, rarely the same one day to the next. A lot of people, if they don’t see the wine, attribute it as a fault of the wine; sometimes, truths are not self-evident.
Low sulphur wines allow wild yeasts to thrive; the presence of these very yeasts, according to some, obfuscates the subtle flavours of the terroir. I wouldn’t agree. The zero sulphur wines of Sébastien Riffault are an excellent refutation – the flavours of his two Sancerres are constantly changing in your mouth and yet there is a discernible difference in style between the Akmenine and the Skeveldra (see below). The sense of terroir is perfectly captured, indeed it is more apparent than the grape variety, whilst the yeasty madness dissipates after a short period in a carafe.
And this is one of the points of natural wines. They are about raw expression. They can be turbid, edgily wild, scarcely definable, possessing a furious integrity. To some they are an aberration, a needless extreme, to me they represent a necessary example of truth-in-wine. There are so many conventional wines, caked in maquillage, created for the ideal critic or the ideal consumer, that one forgets that wine is essentially a product of nature. Natural wines, whether one appreciates their flavours, are simple, unadorned and unpretentious.
Natural wine is not a mimsy trend; it is a dynamic commitment. This means that growers do not perceive it as some mere quasi-philosophical movement to latch on to, but actively resolve to make pure, terroir-driven wines, a decision that drives all subsequent practice in their vineyards and wineries. Damascene conversions are rare and a natural wine philosophy cannot sprout fully-formed overnight; it requires clear objectives, an intimate understanding of the processes involves and a recognition that it is an ongoing approach that needs to be challenged and refined. Some growers are prompted to change methods in the vineyard and winery because they have tasted a natural wine which they admire and wish to replicate the style whilst others are stimulated by the aesthetic, ethical or philosophical desire to find “the truth within the wine”. Experimentation abounds – look, for example, at the number of cuvees that the Puzelats, Breton, Mosse and Courtois produce – their garage wineries are piled high with odd barrels of this, that and the other, a serious effort here, a grand folly there.
There are degrees of what might be described as natural - one grower’s natural wine may be another grower’s “super-natural” wine. Inconsistency and resistance to easy definition are natural wine’s most infuriating characteristic to the majority critics. Wines are snapshots – different grapes, different terroirs, different blends, young vines, old vines, different vinifications with the wild yeasts and low sulphur adding to the danger. Things happen. Not for nothing are cuvees named L’Echappée Belle, Hurluberlu. Natural wines reflect the temperament of the growers and the wild yeasts themselves – restless, dynamic, edgy and unconstrained.
– What is the wine about? Imagine a cathedral lit with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently placed, intensely there, a stave of oak, a punnet of blackcurrants and the gospel according to Robert Parker. (with apologies to HG Wells)
I love these wines for the same reason that I adore simplicity. They speak directly like an emotion communicated simply in a poem or cleanly presented food conveying strong natural flavours (who cares about rough edges) or an intense piece of music that moves us on our pulses. Art that aims at high art, an aesthetic intending to inspire awe or devotion, may be admirable, but I don’t enjoy it on a visceral level; I don’t feel as if I am participating which is also why I’m not a fan of would be architectural wines, painstakingly and preciously constructed in the winery, controlled, modulated, honed and toned. The wine is a means to end and that end is critical approbation, due respect which will inevitably command a certain price in the market. Most of us drink wine at the table, rather than on bended knee.
Eliminating risk helps to achieve consistency, but is that the point of making wine? Should the artist minimise inspiration (Picasso once said: I don’t take drugs – I am drugs) to please the broadest section of the general public or should he or she work passionately with the material in their field.
The first question the natural vigneron will pose him or herself is what is the nature of my terroir? Low sulphur wines are irrelevant unless they are a continuation of a non-interventionist process begun in the vineyard. Thus natural winemaker work not in monoculture, but in a varied landscape shared with nature. The vine is part of the landscape; it takes its signature from the landscape. Biodiversity is the key, the vineyard should be alive in every respect for here is where the language of the wine is primarily expressed.
The decision to use wild rather than cultured yeasts further determines whether a wine can be called natural. A natural fermentation with many different types of yeast will make the wine different every year because each yeast has different character and reacts and combines differently. For some winemakers it is a gamble they prefer not to take and cultured yeasts are used to give controlled fermentations. Natural wines depend on not filtering out natural diversity; conventional wines profile desirable characteristics.
More contentious is the use of sulphur. According to advocates of no sulphur (such as Houillon) healthy viticulture enables the wine to create its own defence mechanism to bacterial spoilage.
Having said that there is an element of uncertainty most natural winemakers are not swivel-eyed, hocus-pocus spouting fanatics leaving their wines in the capricious hands of nature. Wine does not always behave predictably, either in the winery, the bottle or the glass. As an extreme example the white and red wines of Cornelissen can pong to high Etna of sulphides, mercaptans and je ne sais quoi. Three or four days in an unstopped decanter, however, and the naughty whiffs disperse leaving a lovely, fresh wine. Although this is not always the way things work out, what does not kill the wine can actually make it stronger. The wine, like any living entity, may eventually find its unique natural balance.
The greatest wines need time to settle and you should expect perfection from the moment you pull the cork. Aeration, the ideal temperature, the shape of the glass, are elements that shape the development of the wine and natural wines are no different in this regard. Reduction is a feature of many natural wines, but reductive winemaking is by no means exclusive to natural wine.
Those who attack natural wines do so on a number of fronts with curious assertions based on rank prejudice at the worst and poor information at the best. It is fine to claim that you don’t like a particular wine because it doesn’t conform to your particular taste, it is a different matter to lump into a group and dismiss that group unilaterally, and something else to use specious reasoning to reach that viewpoint.
THE ARGUMENTS CONDENSED
Natural wines don’t taste like wine. (Wines can be beery, cidery, reductive).
Wine doesn’t always taste like wine. Who is the arbiter here? The mythical consumer on top of the Clapham omnibus, a holographic projection of the palate of Robert Parker or other Rhadamanthine wine critic? Wines certainly don’t taste like each other, so what template should we be working from? Beaujolais Nouveau doesn’t resemble in the slightest Californian Cabernet Sauvignon. Blush Zinfandel, anaemic Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay with oak chips doesn’t taste like wine in any meaningful sense; it is confected grape juice, highly flavoured with external agents.
Show someone a poor quality natural wine and they may presume to pass judgment on all natural wines. Whilst there are inferior, clumsy examples of natural wine there are also inferior, clumsy examples of conventional wine. One doesn’t offer a blanket judgment about all conventional wines on the basis of a few rotten apples.
Natural wines are virtually never submitted to the major wine judging competitions. Because they incite controversy one could easily imagine panels split on a fundamental level. I know I would end up socking someone in the chops in a fit of pique. Their very existence points to an arbitrariness in the way we perceive wines; one person’s poison is another’s radical joy. The more orthodox taster will attribute his or her dislike to a technical fault in the wine; the “naturalist”, so to speak, will either dispute that is a fault or celebrate the fault as a beacon of individuality. As Goethe said “certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality”.
I encountered an example of this contrary tasting mentality a few days ago when a wine I showed at an event was denounced as corked and oxidised (just to make doubly sure) by a customer who had evidently made up her mind to dislike the wine before she even sampled it. It was neither of those things as it happened, but it was bizarre and twisted. Chacun etc. There a huge number of wines that I will never allow to pass my lips, but there is a place in the pantheon of wine for them. If one’s criterion for faultiness is simple obnoxiousness we would all become arbiters of everyone else’s bad taste.
I like this quote:
If you sincerely desire a truly well-rounded education, you must study the extremists, the obscure and “nutty.” You need the balance! Your poor brain is already being impregnated with middle-of-the-road crap, twenty-four hours a day, no matter what. Network TV, newspapers, radio, magazines at the supermarket… even if you never watch, read, listen, or leave your house, even if you are deaf and blind, the telepathic pressure alone of the uncountable normals surrounding you will insure that you are automatically well-grounded in consensus reality. ~Ivan Stang, High Weirdness By Mail
The winemaker has a duty of care to the consumer… … is the kind of claptrap spouted by consultants to supermarkets. The consumer is a mythical, fearsome, hydra-headed beast created by consumer acceptance panels and so-called arbiters of taste. Let’s not second guess what people may or may not like to drink, but give them the opportunity to assay different things. The customer is perfectly entitled to make his or her own decisions without nannying protection; after all if you don’t like something you can simply avoid it in the future. The duty of care argument is a red herring; supermarkets may have restrictive buying policies but in the real world you can’t legislate for creativity or individuality. One might as well say that footballers have a duty of care to the spectators; that still doesn’t prevent zero entertainment spectacles. Or perhaps we should ask musical artists to compose exclusively for the charts to please the majority of people who buy cds. The natural winemaker is as proud of his wines as he would be of his children; he doesn’t require the imprimatur of a supermarket buyer or a tasting board to feel that he has made a legitimate wine.
You can’t taste terroir in natural wine… … is a fallacy. Terroir differentiation in natural wines is every bit as delineated as conventional wine. One can produce numerous examples from Alsace, Burgundy and the Loire wherein the flavour of the vineyard shines through. The two white Sancerres of Sebastien Riffault are a case in point. According to some wine writers his style of wine-making interferes with the expression of Sauvignon in relation to its terroir. Poppycock! Everything he does may break with received wisdom (late harvest, malolactic, ageing in foudre, no sulphur) but if you taste Akmenine (caillottes terroir) versus Skeveldra (flint) you will immediately notice that the wines are entirely different. Undoubtedly certain types of natural wine closely resemble one another – those, for instance, that undergo reductive winemaking or whites that experience extended skin maceration or are aged in foudres (controlled oxidation) – this is the imprint of the winemaking. Terroir, however, is the subtle accent which, when you taste the wines next to each other, highlights their respective identity and emphasizes that they come from different places.
Homogeneity is the curse of the international style whereof the wine is so denatured, so reliant on the heavy hand of the winemaker that one might struggle to discern from which hemisphere it originated.
Natural wines are expensive
By definition, organic and biodynamic viticulture cannot be done on the cheap. A truly natural wine will often come from a small domaine with scattered vineyards that are often difficult to farm except by hand and horse. The eventual quantity of wine produced may be minuscule, often numbering hundreds of bottles. An artisan product is, by definition, one that is made by hand, not in vast bulk. Relatively speaking the wines are inexpensive compared to those spoofy efforts concocted by oenologists to appeal to a certain kind of wine critic. Take away the marketing subsidies, trumpery and deep discounting of brands and natural wines don’t seem costly at all.
Natural wine is only popular because it is currently trendy
The natural wine scene in the UK, such as it isn’t, is a pinprick, a pleasing divertissement. Those who support the wines are passionate about them and happy to trumpet their virtues. And why not – it is difficult to be passionate about over-marketed brands and the same old growers who have been on the scene for years. To have a scene you must have an organisation and a mouthpiece, thankfully, the growers are sufficiently independent to plough their own furrow. When they convene it is at La Dive, La Remise and satellite wine festivals which are more like parties or family affairs. I think we are too hung up on definitions and labelling. We’ve seen how the appellation system can stifle creativity by setting artificial (and occasionally anomalous) constraints. When I buy a unpasteurised cheese in a farmer’s market I’m taking a certain amount on trust and use my knowledge of the maker – and my senses – to make an informed buying decision. I am not buying a label or a movement but a cheese, after all. In the same spirit natural wines are wines made by bunch of growers who happen to feel the same way about wine. They know what they mean individually what it means to work naturally, but don’t feel it is appropriate to have a binding definition to take account of all the nuances and niceties of their craft.
And, as I’ve said, natural winemakers are not targeting supermarkets, high street stores, competitions or international tastings. As I discovered a lot of growers prefer to sell directly to wine bars rather than wine merchants and, in Paris, you see them in those wine bars pouring their own products. That’s what I call getting close to the consumer.
Natural wine is not a mass movement nor is it a visibly marketed one. It is simply that an expanding group of (mostly young) growers is making wine with minimal interventions and there is a small core of devotees who love the way the wines taste. I think we all need to learn to be less concerned about labels and more interested in what’s in the bottle.
The reaction I get from people who drink natural wine ranges from bemusement, amusement, excitement and adoration. Most acknowledge that these are not run-of-the-mill wines, by which they mean wines that feature in supermarkets or the high street. Most acknowledge that the wines possess strong flavours – reds are said to be earthy, rustic, meaty, wild whilst whites are cidery, funky, spicy, mineral, challenging, food-friendly.
There is a pseudo-academic backlash to natural wines. In my house there are many mansions, saith the Lord. A few years ago biodynamics was scornfully dismissed as a shitty philosophy buried in a cow horn. Nowadays, so many of the world’s greatest growers are biodynamic, or in conversion, that it is nonsense to call it a fringe philosophy even if you think it is hippy-dippy. Evidence for the validity of an action is not what we calibrate in a laboratory but also the evidence of the opinions who taste and drink the wine. We shouldn’t really say that certain agricultural philosophies or winemaking practices are invalid because they have no scientific underpinning any more than we should dismiss all religions for being based on voodoo belief systems. Natural wine is a choice, the very simple logic being that the best and truest wine is made with the fewest possible interventions. Each year is the beginning of a journey that will take the vigneron in a different direction; the creativity of nature is like Dante’s Virgil (or Beatrice, if the outcome is heavenly!) . The role of the winemaker is to reflect what he or she is given, not to compensate for or hide his bounty under a ton of make-up.
The Tasting
2008 Chardonnay Chalasses Marnes Vieilles Vignes, Domaine J-F Ganevat
Summary: 110 year old vines. Blue marls, vinification in old barrel, ambient temp ferment – two yrs elevage, wine ferments for a few weeks, then racked off the gross lees and put into cask (used barrels) for elevage. Zero sulphur.
I chose this wine to illustrate that not all natural wines are intended to frighten the horses and also to celebrate a brilliant vigneron known affectionately as Fanfan who takes no shortcuts and whose passion and dedication knows no bounds. Fanfan is driven by the desire to capture every nuance of the multiple unique terroirs at his disposal; accordingly, he makes around forty cuvees; some are aged ten years before release, all are fermented without temperature control with wild yeasts. The improvement in quality of Fanfan’s wines since he went fully biodynamic and stopped using sulphur is remarkable; they have a clarity and precision that is remarkable.
This is a pretty wine, quite translucent with aromas of acacia and lithe acidity. The citrus flavours arc across the tongue, linger pleasingly. I picked up some the classic marnes crunchy minerality.
Whenever I show this wine people say: “Surely this is not natural. Where’s the volatility, where’s the cloudiness? To which the response would have to be, that many people taste not with their palate but with their prejudice, locked into the notion that every single natural wine is cut from the same cloth. The more experienced the taster, dare one say, the more entrenched the prejudice; it is only by trying wines on their merits that one builds up a comprehensive picture of a movement (not that, as I reiterate, that it is a one-size-fits-all movement).
Whether it is by being artful or artless some writers have the ability to make their writing seem as natural as breathing. Their work becomes ingrained in your consciousness, as if the characters are inside your head, dictating the book, or to look at it another way, the writing is so seamless that you might think the book must be self-generated. In the way that the artist aspires to be truly artless, to disappear into the text so Ganevat’s sublime Chardonnay Chalasses Marnes is pared to the essence of flavour, it forms a fluid wordless language of its own, it is vinous electricity. When the distance between ourselves and the wine is eradicated we don’t have to make the effort to analyse its “hues and fragrances” by lolling the liquid around our mouths, we are simply content to drink and be charmed.
Since natural wine has come increasingly under the spotlight there seems to be a tendency to stand back and evaluate every single with a gimlet scientific eye. The difficulty here is the inbuilt faux-paradox that the more natural the wine – ie the fewer interventions in the process – the more unnatural it tastes to many palates. Flaws and impurities are, however, part of life; in fact, life itself is a mixture of accident and design and yet we insist on conceiving innumerable parameters of correctness as if we can’t live without pettifogging rules and regulations.
The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw. Havelock Ellis ["Impressions and Comments” (1914)]
Those who argue for consistency in wine flavours treat wine as if it were a special case. Faults, however, are often in the mind of the beholder. Those who happily coo over a stinky cheese will derogate a slightly smelly wine. We don’t talk about correct chickens, correct eggs, correct apples, yet wine is reduced (no pun intended) to chemical right and wrong. Those who attack natural wines without even defining what they are, tend to be apologists for wines that are so bland and denatured, so full of unnecessary additives that any arbiter of good taste would surely describe them as faulty, for when you can detect the heavy hand of the winemaker and the additions that manipulate flavour, then the wine itself becomes redundant.
Generalising about a style of wine won’t do. We have to assess wines by wine, year by year, grower by grower, be they conventional or natural – it makes no difference. And we should reassess as well. The wine can be different and so can the aesthetic for judging it. Wine is a living, mutating liquid.
2009 Irouléguy Blanc Hegoxuri, Domaine Arretxea
Summary: Gros/Petit Manseng/Courbu – old vines. Hego – means south, Xuri is white. Sandstone. 40 degree slopes. Biodynamic for several years . Partial maceration for 30 hours. Vinified in foudres and demi-muids. Aged on fine lees in barrel.
I love the bristling purity of this wine, its poise and focus. You get swathes of ripe citrus (pink grapefruit and tangerine) from the Gros Manseng, a touch of marzipan and coconut from the late harvest Petit Manseng and a herbal grip from the Courbu. Like the Ganevat Chardonnay before it has vibrant natural acidity, a kinetic wine that truly captures the cool Pyrenean/Atlantic climate – you can almost smell the saltiness on the wine.
2007 Fiano “Don Chisciotte” Il Tufiello
Summary: Located in Calitri, Alta Irpinia a two hectare estate owned by Zampaglione family who make equally uncompromising natural wines in Piemonte. Il Tufiello is a single vineyard on sandy terroir, situated nearly 900 asl – the highest Fiano vineyards in Campania as far we know. The wine itself undergoes a 20 day warm ferment with wild yeast and a 60 day maceration on skins. No malo, no filtration, no fining, no sulphur, no oak…
Fum fo fi fee –ano, I smell the blood of a natural wine. In this game of natural wine poker yeasts are wild. Yet for all waltzing yeastiness there is apple and medlar fruit, soothing cool climate freshness and lickety-split minerality.
A quick nuzzle reveals only the barest hint of cider house mayhem. Initially, you have to tease out the aromas – a whiff of baked bread, roast sweetcorn, a suggestion of dried fruit and herbs and whispering floral notes of hawthorn and honeysuckle. In the mouth one tastes warm grape-skins dusted with gingery tannins and feel the lemon intensity and mineral-flecked acidity which brings the wine to such a fresh close.
The wine is called Don Chisciotte. It is not known whether any windmills were injured in the making of this delicious enterprise. Like the eponymous knight errant there is a touch of glorious madness, but in the end you see the world naturally through this wine’s hazy orange spectacles.
The point was raised that this was not “typical Fiano”. Most Fiano is clear free-run juice, stabilised, cool fermented and filtered. A lot of southern Italian winemakers have a heavy hand with sulphur. They are worried that the juice will oxidise. In this case a combination of high altitude vineyards (giving the grapes their terrific acidity) and prolonged skin contact imbuing the wine with polyphenolic structure means that sulphur additions are not necessary. When nature provides the preservatives naturally, so to speak, there is no point gilding the lily with supernumerary chemical interventions.
So is Don Chisciotte typical Fiano? It depends how you look at this. Most white wine is cold fermented juice with cultured yeast and made in such a way as to strip the terroir from the wine. This particular Fiano is an outside-in example taking flavours from the grape skin (where most of the flavours are contained) and from the indigenous yeasts whilst preserving the acid structure that conveys the minerality and captures the cool nature of the vintage. Skin contact is central to a traditional style of Italian ”white” (heavy inverted commas( wine-making) – we see it widely in Friuli with Gravner, Princic, Vodipovec, in Piedmont, in Tuscany with Massa Vecchia and in parts of Sicily (Salvo Foti, COS, Marco de Bartoli) and Sardinia (Dettori and AA Panevino); it concerns texture and complexity. Perhaps most Fianos are anaemic versions of Fiano; the true potential of the grape is rarely realised.
2008 Vin de Table « Gilbourg » Benoit Courault,
Summary: From Faye d’Anjou in the Coteaux du Layon. Gilbourg is the name of a single parcel of 65 year old Chenin. Tiny yields. Clay-schist soils. 1 year fermentation at ambient temp. Natural malo. Aged one year in 5 year old barrels. 3 barrels made. No filtration, no fining, no sulphur
Benoit took over the 6.5 ha vineyard in 2006, having cut his vinous teeth in Chambolle-Musigny and in Tavel with the one of the archbishops of natural wine, Eric Pfifferling. Farming is organic and the non-interventionist philosophy extends into the winery. The Gilbourg (name of the plot) is pure, but not so simple, Chenin. Sixty year old vines on clay-schist soils, very low yields, long vinification, wild yeast ferment without temperature control and maturation for twelve months in three to five year old barrels, makes for a rich, earthy style of wine with bruised orchard fruit. To say that not much of this is made is an understatement. 2008 is a remarkably fine vintage for Chenin with explosive acidity.
I have drunk this over the course of three days and the changing flavours took my palate on an exotic journey. Imagine ripe apples rolled in honey-coated green leaves then add cinnamon and musk and some spiky acidity for definition. The wine moves, sometimes mellow and textured, sometimes sharper and delineated.
A wine that changes is a wine that possesses life. The Gilbourg describes different shapes in the mouth; its constant evolution and sheer intangibility is part of its charm. The converse is also true with natural wines – some are light and fizzy, drink them quickly because they are extremely fragile.
2008 Matassa Blanc, Cuvée Alexandria, VdP des Côtes Catalanes
Summary: Vineyards in the Fenouillèdes and Calce. Schist and slate soils. Biodynamic. 15 hl/ha. Muscat of Alexandria grapes. Whole bunch pressed in wooden basket press. Wild yeast ferment in foudre and barrel, aged 14 months on lees. Elevage in demi-muids (500-litres). Unfiltered, unfined, small amount of sulphur used during ferment.
Capturing the heat of sun on bleached rock and supplementing it with an array of smoky citrus fruits, the Alexandria exhibits the grapefruit and orange-blossom varietal character of the Muscat with interesting honeydew notes, bergamot oil and fugitive garrigue flavours of balsam and roasted thyme.
At this juncture we had a volatile discussion about VA. The flaws/quirks are what make one wine different to another. Some are naturally occurring i.e. the result of a particular fermentation as opposed the abuse of sulphur which is a man-made fault. I want to address the inconsistency whereby people believe that wines are necessarily faulty because they have relatively high VA or are in a state of flux (because of the zero sulphur regimes) but are somehow not faulty despite clumsy winemaking which is inimical to the overall flavour of the wine.
Dimethyl oxide, for example, at low sensory thresholds can contribute interesting aromas to the wine. There are widely different opinions also as to what level of volatile acidity is appropriate for higher quality wine. Although too high a concentration is certain to leave an undesirable, ‘vinegar’ tasting wine, some wine’s acetic acid levels are developed to create a more ‘complex’, desirable taste. The renowned 1947 Cheval Blanc is widely recognized to contain high levels of volatile acidity. There are many examples of celebrated wines where the wine changes to absorb the VA and the result is an extra dimension.
But are we talking about fault or about flavour? The making of cheese is a bacterial process and unpasteurised cheese is full of uncontrolled bacterial flavours. In certain cases, I would submit, the flaws in wine are what enhance its overall flavour. If this were not the case we should probably remove all variable factors such as wild yeasts, winemakers should never practise ambient ferments for the very same reason. If all you seek is a wine to be “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection; no more” (Maud – Tennyson) you will deprive the world of some of its greatest wines.
What one person perceives as a fault, another may see as a mark of individuality, something which incorporated in the very warp and weft of the wine gives it a singular identity. What one person sees as correctness, another may see as denatured product, a product arrived at by the robotic application of winemaking technique.
There are critics and winemakers who have no truck with wine flaws and there are those who embrace them enthusiastically. The truth is in the wine and not the theory.
2008 Sancerre Skeveldra, Sébastien Riffault
Summary : From the village of Verdigny. Skeveldra is flint. Biodynamic in vineyard. 30 hl/ha (about half of the average). Harvested late. Vinified in large barrels. Long ambient ferment – wild yeast. No malo, Unfiltered, unfined, tiny dose of sulphur at bottling.
The Sancerre was always going to be my shocker from the locker. We all have a Pavlovian response to the word “Sauvignon”. Gooseberry nasal enema is mine. I am not normally a fan of a grape variety that expresses itself (seemingly) in one aromatic plane.
Having showed Riffault’s wines on plenty of occasions recently (as well as those from Puzelat, Noella Morantin, Clos Roche Blanche and Alexandre Bain) I have discovered that there is another style of transcendent (transgressive?) Sauvignon.
Any winegrower will tell you that the Loire was not always a monoculture and vignerons would also have orchards and grow vegetables. As a consequence they would tend to harvest the grapes considerably later than they do now. Those grapes would have high sugar content and all-round phenolics, the skins turning almost orangey-purple in colour. Traditional ferments were always ambient with wild yeasts and in wooden barrels (often foudres). It is fascinating to taste the cuvées d’Antan and Jadis from Domaine Henri Bourgeois, both homages to the way that wine was made several generations ago. These Sancerres have extraordinary texture – they don’t, in the least, resemble our elderflowery friend, Sauvignon. Examples of these wines have been known to aged fifty years. Riffault goes that extra step; unlike the vast majority of winemakers in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé who use a lot of sulphur to inhibit the malo, he allows the full malo to take place.
Despite comments this is a terrific expression, not only of Sauvignon, but of Sancerre, and the silex terroir. Line up Skeveldra against his other cuvee Akemine and you taste two dramatically different wines: the former (on Caillottes) has luscious pear and quince aromas with a citrus butter finish, whereas the Skeveldra is a more driven style with an underlying smokiness and more pronounced acidity. Identical vinification, different wines.
To me Loire Sauvignon is much of a muchness. If you believe that grapes harvested by machine (with resultant high yields) which are not physiologically ripe and go into stainless steel containers where they are fermented at low temperature with cultured yeasts and subsequently given a big dose of sulphur in order to inhibit the malo is the best, most natural expression of Sauvignon then that is presumably your cup of very cold tea. This is a disservice to Sauvignon, to Sancerre and the terroir that makes Sancerre so exciting. That a few growers are reviving the tradition of handling the grapes sensitively, bringing out their real aromatic richness in the winemaking, is an exciting development much to be applauded in my opinion.
2009 Gamay d’Auvergne « Pierres Noires » Domaine Maupertuis
Summary: Influenced by Lapierre and worked at the great Domaine Peyra with Stéphane Majeune. Gamay d’Auvergne (slightly different to Gamay Beaujolais) and some Mirefleurien – a very dark, intense grape named after its local village home. Pierres Noires is from 100 year old vines on clay with volcanic stones and basalt. Cement vats, Co2, wild yeast, semi carbo, no pumping, no extraction. Fermented in cement, elevage in fibreglass. No filtration, no fining, zero sulphur.
Natural winemakers are sometimes caricatured as being peasants who can’t be bothered with the process of winemaking. The father of natural wine is Jules Chauvet, a brilliant chemist, exacting taster and winemaker. He influenced a generation of winemakers to think again about winemaking and to be analytical.
Jean Maupertuis Pierres Noires is a vin de terroir and a vin de soif at the time. In a normal vintage it weighs in around 11% (2009 was an extremely warm year, so 12% here) Stylistically, it is quite distinct from his other cuvées from grapes grown on limestone-based soils. The other more remarkable thing about Maupertuis wines is they age well and are still fresh and lucid after 5-7 years.
Slightly cloudy with an aroma of barnyard when it is first opened. This dissipates quickly, but leaves behind a topsoil smell that remains to accompany the raspberry notes. Sour cherry and pomegranate seed flavours are accompanied with earthiness too. This is a Gamay as nature intended, organic, unfiltered and unsulphured, as prickly as a hedgehog with ants in his pants, a dark pickled damson strut across the tongue, and you should drink it with alacrity from a pot lyonnais with some tripoux or ”Truffade” a baked mixture of sliced potatoes and Tome de Cantal.
The wine should be stored and served lightly chilled. Someone commented that natural wines were fragile and I would subscribe to the view that certain wines have a relatively narrow temperature band to express themselves perfectly. These lightish, zero-tannin reds prefer the cooler. However, this is true of all wines – we don’t serve Muscadet and white Burgundy, or Beaujolais and Chateauneuf at the same temperature. Each particular wine (and not even every vintage is the same) has to find the temperature most appropriate to its needs.
2008 Vin de Pays de la Côte Vermeille « La Luna », Bruno Duchene
Summary: Banyuls sur Mer. 90% Grenache 10% Carignan – 40 year old vines sur schist. 15 day ferment in wooden vats. No filtration or fining – just a tiny bit of sulphur at bottling.
This as they say in France is lo sang del pais, the blood of the earth, a sanguine, fruit-driven style of red, sunny and easy-drinking.
The question was raised that these were wines that you could only drink a glass rather than a bottle. I find the reverse is true. To me the absence of sulphur, the high levels of natural acidity, the lack of residual sugar or added sweetness, the low alcohol levels (relatively speaking) the absence of oak, supple tannic structure enables me to appreciate the wine on a simple level – that of a thirst-quenching drink. If the definition of a good wine is an empty bottle on the table then these wines hit the mark. For the sommelier I understand that the wine has to make the statement to the customer; I am more concerned with the pleasure principle; I do not want to have to analyse the wine to get inside it, I don’t want my palate to have to negotiate the winemaker’s tricks and tropes before I can taste anything. I understand that if you don’t like a natural wine you wouldn’t want to drink more than one glass of it, but they are, to use a Jeffordism, highly digestible wines.
Earlier this year I was on a panel at the Decanter Wine Awards judging Italian wines. For wine after wine my notes read CD (can’t drink) or Plank-ton (for heavily oaked examples). Who would drink 15% wines with cooked fruit and charred oak? Why is it that these wines (and some of them were iconic to coin a cliché) sell? Is it to have and to hold? I would have welcomed a vin de soif, or its Italian equivalent, and given it a high mark.
2009 Brouilly Croix des Rameaux, Jean-Claude Lapalu
Summary: SE facing vineyard on granite. 80 year old vines, low yields, handpicked grapes. Conversion to biodynamie. grapes are harvested fairly late, the cuvaison last for 20 to 25 days (traditional vinification with destemmed grapes). The press wine is added to the rest of the juice for the end of the alcoholic fermentation. The wine is then put in 3 to 5 years old barrels where it spend the next 9/10 months. Bottled without filtration or fining and very low addition of sulphur.
Not all Beaujolais/Gamay is carbo. The top level plushness of this wine underscored by the granitic grip shows the potential of the region. Vineyards are high up the slopes, the terroir is terrific and old vines give depth. Time to give the Burgundies a run for their expensive money? The wine may be expensive for a Brouilly but as an argument that crow won’t caw. There is so much second-third-and-fourth-rate Burgundy that lives off the reputation of its appellation (Clos Vougeot, anyone?). We have to assess wines for what they are, not where they come from. One positive about blind tastings is that they juxtapose wines from different regions and different price points, and on many occasions some whippersnapper outsider/ringer will emerge with the highest marks. Although it may not mean anything (and half a dozen similar tastings might yield half a dozen different results) we shouldn’t become hostages to our expectations.
2009 Pinot Noir, Cuvée Julien Ganevat, Domaine Ganevat
Summary: Vines nearly 60 years old on schist. Grapes are destemmed. Ambient ferment on wild yeasts in barrel. Zero everything.
Fanfan’s intention is to make limpid delicate expressive Pinot Noir. I have heard supposedly reputable experts on wine airily declare that the glory of the Jura is white wine and that the reds are as insignificant as they are insubstantial. This shows not only a lack of taste but a serious cultural misapprehension. The whites (or rather yellow wines) are the art of the possible and an improbable triumph. They are wines without compare. The reds, however, capture the spirit of the region in a profound way. They are lithe, lean, earthy, crunchy, mineral, rasping, occasionally angular, but my, how pure – and what delicious food wines! From ethereal Poulsards through aromatic, medium-bodied Pinots to rustic, musky Trousseaus we’ve drunk Jurassic reds that seem to be the very distillation of rocks and fruit. And some of the wines age with amazing grace.
Jean-Francois Ganevat’s Julien Ganevat conveys skittish aromas of morello cherry, redcurrants, wild strawberry and quince. I have described it as rose-hued, slithering hither and thither across the palate. It reminds me of Burgundies from the 60s and 70s that I have been lucky enough to drink.
2008 VigneVecchie, AA Panevino
Summary: 75 km from Cagliari. 150 year old Cannonau 50% ; Muristellu, Nieddu Mannu, Cagnulari, Tintillu. Limestone on schist. 500 + metres asl. Biodynamic. Approximately three weeks fermentation (in open vats outdoors under a tree). Fermentation is not controlled, quite hot- the ambient Sardinian temperature after harvest. All the Panevino wines are matured in large oak vats of between 8-15 yrs old for a period of seven months. No fining, no filtering, no acidification, no sulphur. ”We use only grapes and prayers”.
Pull up an armchair and warm your interest in wine at the crackling fire of extreme passion. This is the story of Gianfranco Manca, formerly a baker, who, having taken over his uncle’s bakery made delicious, prize-worthy Sardinian breads.
With the bakery there also came some plots of land with some very old vines that had somehow remained although practically neglected for years. Panevino – you can see where I am going with this. The vines were trained in alberello (goblet), the traditional bush-system used on the islands of Italy, numbered over thirty different varieties, but mainly Cannonau. Since he was already an expert at fermentation with bread, Gianfranco believed the natural progression would be to understand wine fermentation with the help of these vines. He set about rehabilitating the old vines and planted a parcel of new vines of Monica and Carignano del Sulcis, the local strain of the famous grape. Although he started making wine in the mid 80’s it wasn’t until 2005 that he was ready to put a label on it and offer his interpretation to the rest of the world.“Following the steps of my family that lives the vineyard life since over a century, “panevino” ("breadwine") is born. Why panevino? Panevino is the essence, the essential, simplicity, daily life, celebration, truth: Daily life turned into celebration, celebration every day. All that I bring it with me in the vineyard, I hoe it, prune it… The vineyard returns it in the shape of a few concentrated grape bunches.
Sardinian wines, particularly the Cannonau, normally exemplify the maxim of never mind the quality feel the width and alcoholic strength. They don’t respect nuance. Big ain’t bad, only clumsiness is, and the weight of the wine gives an excuse to smother the flavours in masses of oak. What you end up with is a dam of strawberry jam.
Treacle-black (if not bible-black) VV smells of tar, woodsmoke, balsam, black bread and roast meat as well as the Sardinian macchia notes of laurel, myrtle and bay. It has depth, viscosity and the kind of pure intensity that takes you straight to the vineyard and rubs your nose in the soil. And yet there is the background acidity is terrific giving definition to the fruit.
Gianfranco is a man of great humility who almost seems to carve his wines out of the extreme climate. His wines remind me of him, totally unusual, quirky and generous.
2009 Vin de Table « Le Rouge et Mis », Thierry Puzelat
Summary: Whole clusters into open, tronconic wooden-vats with CO2 over it with punching of the cap after a week when the grapes begin to be altered, then into the casks after pressing with the same elevage conditions, the wine feeding quietly off its lees. Unfiltered. Aged in 228 litres futs and demi-muids (500l)
Natural wines do not revolve around the soliloquy “To use sulphur or not to use sulphur”, but also concern the way the grower connects with the environment. Sustainability is one aspect of this as well as also keeping alive traditions (such as using horses in the vineyard) and resurrecting indigenous grape varieties. The Loire may be a sea of Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, but there is also Grolleau, Cot, Pineau d’Aunis, Menu Pineau, Tresallier, Gascon, and Romorantin ... and Pinot Meunier to consider. One of Puzelat’s missions is to assist small growers who don’t have the wherewithal to make wines, and, in some cases, look after their vines as well. The result of one such rescue mission was Le Rouge est Mis, whereby he was able to save a few rows of Pinot Meunier in a little clearing by a forest from being grubbed up .
During the 19th century, Pinot Meunier was widely planted throughout northern France, especially in the Paris basin. It was found across the northern half of country from the Loire Valley to Lorraine. Now it is firmly the third grape of Champagne.
Puzelat’s version is bonny and fresh, a velvet crush of raspberries and summer strawberries with enough of a liquorice twist to give the winery a savoury dimension. The ripeness is just-so, suggestive rather than full throttle, another example of a naked, unadorned wine with the confidence to speak for itself.
2008 Minervois La Nine, Jean-Baptiste Sénat
Summary: Jean-Baptiste and Charlotte Sénat have been working this fifteen hectare domaine in the heart of Minervois since 1996. They are located in Trausse-Minervois in the foothills of the Montagne Noir. The soils here are limestone-clay and their mainly south-facing vineyards are set in the heart of the garrigue.
They are certified organic and carry out all work by hand. Vinification takes place with minimal intervention in a mixture of large and small casks (stored underground): natural yeasts, no fining, no filtration and only a tiny bit of sulphur are the recipe for living and drinkable wines. Everything is done by gravity to avoid pumping. La Nine has a cuvaison of 16 days with pigeage and spends ten months in cuve before being bottled (by gravity) without filtration.
The exact composition of the blends changes from year to year but La Nine generally features a mixture of around 40% Grenache (45 plus year old vines), 30% Carignan (including 100 year old + gnarled gobelet vines), 10% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre and 10% Cinsault (40 year old vines), a delicious wine with notes of garrigue herbs and spice over black fruits. Lovely equilibrium, elegant tannins and mellow mouthfeel.
The reason I chose La Nine is because every component knits together to reveal a harmonious wine. Beautiful grapes are a sign of a healthy vineyard; they reach their optimal maturity without having to hang for some time on the vine. Gentle handling in the winery keeps those aromas focused. Winemaking isn’t rocket science (although when you visit some wineries the experience can be like stepping onto the set of a science fiction movie); it is about sensitivity towards what you harvest from the vineyard.
2009 Bourgogne Rouge Auguste, Clos des Vignes du Maynes
Summary: Enclosed vineyard – has been one for 1000 years planted by the Benedictine monks at Cluny, Very old vines, arguably France’s oldest organic vineyard, selection massale, hand harvested,, 30% old grape clusters, very old barrels, zero everything…
From the time the grapes are picked by hand to the time the wines are bottled neither additives nor SO2 are used. The pressing operation is slow, carried out on wooden wine presses dating from 1895. Fermentation takes the form of carbonic maceration over a period of ten days (Jules-Chauvet method). All wines, regardless of creed or colour, are left on the lees in oak barrels for eleven months producing wines full of character.
This domaine is laboriously restoring vineyards on a mountain that were cultivated 1,100 years ago. This is the Pinot Fin and under this dorsal is a mouth with the bite of a Great White (or, in this case, a Great Red). I haven’t tasted a Pinot Noir of this mineral intensity for a very long time. It is difficult to describe – liquidised rocks, perhaps? – cloudy cherry-red colour a natural Griotte cherries, wild strawberries, menthol, saffron plus a fizzing bright yeasty quality. Wow – this makes 95% Burgundy taste flabby. So pure – the terroir of the monastery.
My biggest disappointment was the muted reaction to this wine. On the one hand, the given information that these vineyards date back a millennium, that the terroir is very singular with a high metallic and crystalline content that seems to militate into the very wine itself, that the picking and selection of grapes is utterly fastidious bringing in harvests of microscopic yields and superbly healthy grapes, that examples of the wines age easily; twenty plus years, that the winemaker Julien Guillot is the most incredible perfectionist… These are the building blocks of greatness. This is where we have to examine the wine with our senses, roll it around our mouths and allow the sensuous interplay of fruit and mineral to happen. When I have showed this to other groups (without telling them what it was) the reaction has been electric. On this occasion, however, people were tasting Bourgogne Rouge (an irrelevance, the wine could be a vin de table and it wouldn’t matter) and evaluating it accordingly. If a little learning is a dangerous thing, quite a bit of learning can be anathema. It harks back to our discussion about expectation seasoning our palates. If your palate is calibrated to respond to flashy, upfront wines then Julien Guillot’s wines, which are never bold or obviously stated, will seem as if they are missing a dimension. For me, who believes in naked wines, they are aesthetically beautiful and totally to the point – there is nothing which is not an integral part of the wine (and how few wines can we say that of?)
2009 St Joseph Rouge, Domaine Dard et Ribo
Summary: You wouldn’t say that Dard et Ribo belonged to any movement. They rarely, if ever, appear at wine fairs, their product is sucked up greedily by the Japanese and American markets.
Whole clusters, foot-stomping some of them, maybe 10 %, to get a bit of juice in the bottom where the fermentation will start naturally (no lab yeasts here of course). Every day, twice generally, they push a bit the on cap in the wooden vats to break a few grapes so that the process goes on slowly. They don’t do a carbonic fermentation or carbonic maceration, nor cold macerations. Occasionally, a certain cuvee will see a little sulphur, but none was used at all in 09 and all the wines are unfiltered and unfined.
As with other natural winemakers they spent some time questioning and then unlearning the vinicultural orthodoxies. The teaching in Beaune was for conventional, additives-loaded winemaking, and the only time they had a course about organic management was to mock it and warn about the risks. It was in school that Jean-René Dard learned about SO2 amongst many other additives, (his father having never used any in his winemaking). Truly, education is what you don’t learn at school.
The Saint-Joseph had a nose of smoked blueberries, blackcurrant, kalamata olives, roast bay, rosemary and balsam. Mouthfilling flavours of tapenade, garrigue herbs and dark forest fruits supplemented by sweet woodsmoke and soy as well as an incredible savouriness reminiscent of sweetcure bacon. Not just Syrah but pure Syrah; not just pure Syrah, pure Saint-Joseph.
And finally...As I have said previously natural wine is not a coherent movement as such, rather a loose affiliation of growers, drinkers, sommeliers and a few writers. Their forum is the wine bar, rather than the great court of public opinion. I’m not in favour of being prescriptive or exclusive; everyone is invited to taste and make up their own mind, winemakers are free to change. Why it is such a significant development is that growers are respecting their environment and winemakers are taking risks – they are also challenging the status quo and pushing the boundaries. Some will make great wine, some will make great vinegar. Being in the wine trade we should open ourselves to something different and encourage distinctiveness and diversity. Some of these vignerons are single-handedly saving grape varieties from extinction and rediscovering flavours in their wine that would not have happened if they followed a commercial imperative. We should acknowledge that the wines don’t all taste the same; the tasting above demonstrates how wide the spectrum of natural wine styles is.
My final point is somewhat tangential; it concerns the very question of taste itself. As self-confessed experts in the subject of wine we should never believe that our taste is exquisite and that our judgements are infallible. No matter how experienced a taster I think I am, I am not, nor will be, an arbiter of anybody’s taste other than my own; and I will not set myself above the wine itself. This does not prevent me from making sweeping generalisations on occasion that deserve to be challenged, but I am also allowed to challenge the received wisdom and cherished beliefs held by others. Like Rene-Jean Dard, like Arianna Occhipinti, like Sebastien Riffault I am unlearning much of what I read in text books or was drummed into me in lectures. We go to school and university so that we can forge independent ways of thinking rather than to spout socially acceptable mantras. What makes wine so fascinating is that it can be the catalyst for intense discussions, but we should never lose sight of the fact that someone, somewhere has put their body and soul into the wine, in order for us to drink it and, hopefully, enjoy it.