Two natural wine manifestos for the price of one

In the light of recent kerfuffle on the wine grid about natural wine I thought it timely to publish a corrective. We may all love a mass debate but things start getting puerile when sweeping statements are made without rhyme nor reason about a whole group of growers and their wines.

I decided therefore to tabulate a not-entirely serious manifesto for natural wine, when blow me down and shiver me oak staves, I found this far funnier and more pertinent version from the inestimable Joe Dressner. I’m therefore giving his musings pride of place and I’d quite understand if you don’t wish to plough through my subsequent rantings.

...The problem is that there was never an official faith and never a doctrine. The blogosphere and media created a construct, milked-it for publicity and then deconstructed an “ideology” that they had helped to define and promote. The King is Dead, Long Live the Next Fad!”

14. Who appointed me to speak for The Natural Wine Movement, you ask? I seized control three years ago in an epic battle with François Ecco and Arnaud Erhart. Since then, I have been the official public spokesman for me, myself and I.

And this is me…

You can’t open a link on a wine blog now without stumbling across some doctrinaire blast against natural wines and the natural wine movement. There is evidently more joy etc. etc. in the conventional wine world amongst the professional sourpusses and harrumphing Bufton-Tuftons over a natural sinner who repenteth his crazy position (recant, recant)… This is all my eye and Betty Martin for these cynics and canting naysayers are fixating on an elusive and illusory target, creating - for the sake of a not-very-good-argument - a world populated by bogeymen winemakers with their scarifying pagan rituals and voodoo practices.

The closed mind is a function of the preconditioned palate; to say that you don’t like the taste of something is one thing; to dismiss it out of hand reveals a lack of intellectual rigour. The anti Natural Wine Movement is a movement which has constructed a straw man out of the object of its ire and is busily burning it. But straw men are not real people and phoney ideologies are in the eye of the mind of the beholder; the net results is are closed arguments that definitely generate more heat than light.

Discourses against natural wine are thus invariably conducted in a sophomoric manner and based on numerous epic misapprehensions, the primary one being the notion that natural wines are trendy and they are marketed to be so. Marketing and natural wine, image and natural wine these are not bedfellows, unless they are hung-over, rumpled bedfellows who crashed on the floor of someone’s flat after a bit of a session. The Natural Wine Movement (ironic capitals) never once preened itself said: “Look at me, I’m an intellectually serious proposition come to spook all your most deeply and dearly cherished notions about the way wine is made and tastes”. To deny its validity, however, would be the same as to sneer at stalls that sell street food on paper plates for not being restaurants. Those who make and those who drink natural wine are making an individual choice rather than slavishly following the whims of the critics. All we care about is getting that natural goodness from the vineyard into the bottle with as few modifications as possible. Do not pass go, do not collect £200.

Thierry Puzelat’s wines are in such demand that he could sell them several times over. “ I could charge considerably more for them, but I don’t want to make wine to fit in with the expectations created by higher prices.”

“Don’t pay any attention to the critics-don’t even ignore them.” (Samuel Goldwyn)

Now a word to the pseudo-wise. Criticism is the business of being serious about wine – a calculated response based on a blend of native prejudice and scientific scepticism. But all wines are different and there is a story behind each one. Bin this approach. Good humour, good company, good food and open-mindedness are the best recipe for imaginative appreciation. Natural wine people do not believe that they are “young enough to know everything” – pace Oscar Wilde). Leaving aside that dross is dross for a’ that, the mindset of the critic is often to anatomize for the sake to it thereby destroying what it seeks to understand. Too reductive one critic states categorically about a Syrah made in a reductive fashion. That white wine is too cidery, observes another writer. It’s oxidised, volunteers someone triumphantly about an oxidative-style wine. Too acidic, rejoins another. Too shoes and ships and sealing wax, asserts one. Too cabbages and kings, says another. Criticism like this becomes an end in itself, a series of reflexive tropes, a stylized response uncoupling pleasure from the experience, as if registering subjective pleasure should be invalid.

We are not responding here to the wine per se, but to a platonic notion of correctness. This is the zero defect culture which ignores the “deliciousness” of the wine. We cannot see the whole for deconstructing the minutiae, and we lose respect for the wine.  We never mention enjoyment, so we neglect enjoyment. This reminds me of the American fad for highbrow literary criticism, imbued with a sense of its own importance. Wine is as a poem written for the pleasure of others, not a textual conundrum to be unpicked in a corridor of mirrors in the halls of academia.

In conventional, reductive wine criticism you will not find any words like magic, joy, passion, spontaneity or creativity – the language of transcendence, where structures dissolve and new meaning is found through emotion and reaction. The more I taste wine, the more I believe that that each response is one of many truths and that if I purely use a narrow critical approach then I exclude my imagination and intuition. If we can bring an open mind to tasting wine – as Coleridge wrote, “There is in genius an unconscious activity” - we may allow the wine itself to breathe and fulfil its living destiny.

The beauty of natural wines is that you can cast doubt on them all you want; you cannot, however, argue that there are loads of people who adore drinking wines in this idiom.

And let’s not forget that there is a phenomenal amount of mediocre, conventional bilge manufactured not to mention overwrought pretentiously expensive kit that has no soul whatsoever. Where do these wines figure in the critical pantheon? What you consider to be correct and commendable we may deplore for lack of energy, originality and drinkability.  Vulgarity is all fur and no knickers, vulgarity is a wine that costs the earth but does not taste of the earth, vulgarity is a wine you buy for the label but not for the content.

Yes, indeed, my friends, there is an alternative la-la world, a sham aristocracy, a misbegotten meritocracy, celebrating absurdly puffed-up, spoofy wines. Natural wines may wear their threadbare rags with pride and if you don’t like ‘em, you don’t have to look at them.  But the emperor’s new clothes emporium has been disgorging their new style-over-substance line for many years, aided and abetted by certain critics who favour style over substance. Consumers are brainwashed by the marking system into believing that there is an inevitable hierarchy of quality. For example, a loving and honest food-friendly little Gamay can, and never will, rank as high as Napa Valley oak bomb because sophistication is gauged by how gaudy the raiment is. A peacock is no more functional than a house sparrow. Those wines that aim for perfectionism at best achieve a faulty faultlessness (pace Tennyson) yet the elimination of those tiny flaws that give a wine its individuality also robs the wine of its very lifeblood. 

Critical approbation tends to focus on the lavishly made up wines: the primped, pumped, souped-up models. I don’t “get” these wines any more than I get an expensive fake fur coat.  All that glisters are not gold medals. Disagreement is an important part of debate here if the debate is honest. The way I taste is who I am and what I like. Consequently, there are wines that I find faulty because I dislike them. Any wine which tastes acidified or alcoholic or sweetly toasted, wherein I can discern the interventions at the expense of the fruit and essential flavour is, to my palate, faulty. I can’t imagine the winemaker admitting the fault – which becomes a neat paradox: the desire to avoid faults in the wine is so great that it drives the winemaker into making meretricious, over-elaborated wines. The desire to improve on nature and keeping on adding layers of flavour is the desire to conform to a perceived archetype of what is good. The winemakers themselves are guilty in coaxing the wine fit the recipe.

As natural wine advocates we will always say that less is more. Ultimately you have to ask yourself “Which is the wine that I want take home and drink”? Will it be the delicious gutsy-savoury wine from the Aveyron or a Ploussard from Arbois or some ramped up international cuvée lying inertly in its oak coffin surrounded by a trove of competition medals. The former gets the juices flowing; the latter clogs our arteries. Just as we don’t have to be loud to make ourselves heard wine does not have to be pretentious to be interesting.

Wine writers and foodies bridle when they hear the term “natural”. How dare we appropriate a word so loaded with “natural” goodness? How dare we foist our funky natural yeasts on them? Smooth down your quills, you fretful porpentines. We won’t apologise for highlighting the dichotomy in winemaking methods; there is an undeniably a vast difference between a liquid which is mass processed in a factory and chemically corrected at every stage and one which undergoes virtually no interventions other than the conversion of grape juice into alcohol. The former is a product no different to coca cola, the latter is about wine.

The Second Natural Wine Manifesto

1. Start from the following simple premise. To borrow from Gertrude Stein: The wine is the wine is the wine and the grower is the grower and the vintage is the vintage etc. It is not about this is good and that’s better. There is no uncritical freemasonry of natural wine aficionados and its devotees will happily dis a wine that deserves it.

2. Who is the leader of the natural wine movement and articulates its philosophy? Probably, whoever chooses to – over a drink, We are all Spartacus in our cups. Think camaraderie and comity with these guys, not po-faced table-thumping, self-indulgent tract-scribbling and meaningless sloganeering.

3. But wouldn’t it be a heck of a lot easier for consumers if there was a manifesto detailing what winemakers are supposed to do and not to do? What conceivable difference would that make? Take several hundred individuals and ask them if they agree on every single point of viticulture and vinification. See what I mean. Rules is for fools. There are enough guidelines for natural winemakers to be getting on with and as long as they work within the spirit of minimal intervention they may be said to be natural.

4. But that’s cheating! How can you claim the moral high ground for natural wines if you won’t submit to scrutiny? We’re not claiming any high ground; in fact we prefer rootling in the earth around the vines getting our snouts grubby; we’re simply positing an alternative way of making wines that doesn’t involve chucking in loads of additives or stripping out naturally-occurring flavours. Yes, this is self-policed – there are no certificates to apply for or accreditation bodies to satisfy. Praise be.

5. If natural wine is not sufficiently equipped/bothered to organise itself into a movement why should anyone take it seriously? To paraphrase Groucho Marx: A natural winegrower wouldn’t want to any club that would accept him or her as a member.  The world of wine is far too clubby and cosy. In the end it is about what’s in the bottle of wine on the table.

6. But we do know who they are, these growers? Some are certainly well known, some fly under the radar. Yes, some of them are best mates; they drop in on each other, share equipment (including horses!), go to the same parties, wear quirky t-shirts, attend small salons and slightly larger tastings. And quite a few don’t because they have so little wine to sell (such as Metras, Dard & Ribo...) By their craggy-faced and horny hands shall ye know them. But their activity is not commercialised; there is no single voice that speaks authoritatively for the whole natural wine movement – and therein lies its beauty, so many character simply getting on with the job without hype or recourse to corporate flimflam.

7. A certain amount of silliness and cod-referentiality is required to appreciate natural wine. Especially those goofy labels. Plus a working knowledge of French argot. And probably an intimate acquaintance with the oeuvre of Jacques Brel.

8. People who love natural wine are not preachy nor are they competitive. We are thankful when we drink a bottle that hits all the right notes and que sera sera if it doesn’t. Those who love natural wines don’t mark them out of 100 because that scale is too limiting (darling, I love you, I award you 97 points); and rarely, if ever, are natural wines submitted to international tasting competitions.

9. We believe that wine is a living product and will change from day from day just as we ourselves change.

10. Oak is the servant of wine not its master. Natural winekmakers understand this.

11. If it is a movement (and it’s not) how big could it possibly be? We must threaten our growers with violence, we get on knees and wail piteously, we bribe and cajole for our pittance of an allocation. Take out those Parisian cavistes and wine bar owners with their hot line to the growers, the Japanese who won’t drink anything else and a healthy rump of Americans led by Dressner et al and there’s barely enough to whet your appetites and wet our whistles let alone begin to satisfy the market we’re priming over here. Small is beautiful and marginal is desirable, but it makes a nonsense out of continuity. We gnash our teeth, but we love it as the knowledge that the wine is such a finite commodity makes it all the more precious (my precious) and we become ever more determined that it goes to an appreciative home.

12. The heroes of the natural wine movement are the growers. There are teachers and pupils, there are acolytes and fans, but no top dog, no blessed hierarchy, no panjandrum of cool. Some growers are blessed with magical terroir, others fight the dirt and the climate, clawing that terroir magic from the bony vines. They are both artisans and artists. What impresses us about the growers is their humility and their congeniality, a far cry from the arrogance of those who are constantly being told their wines are wonderful a hundred times over and end up dwelling in a moated grange of self-approval.

13. One new world grower wrote to me that he felt had more in common with vignerons several thousand miles away; he understood their language, loved drinking their wines - these people were his real family.

14. 99% of people who criticise natural wine have never made a bottle of wine in their lives. 110% of statistics like that are invented.

15. Natural wines – they all taste the same, don’t they? D’oh! Of course they do, there isn’t a scintilla of difference between these bacterially-infected wines which are all made to an identical formula of undrinkability; they are totally without nuance, subtlety, complexity, and those who drink, enjoy and appreciate natural wines evidently had their taste buds removed at a very young age with sandpaper. This canard is one dead duck.

16. Does the process of natural winemaking mask terroir? Terroir is in the mouth of the beholder, perhaps, but the clarity, freshness and linear quality of natural wines, supported by acidity, makes them excellent vehicles for terroir expression.

17. Natural wines are incapable of greatness. Let us put aside for a moment the notion that good taste is subjective and transport ourselves to our favourite desert island with our dog-eared copy of the Carnet de Vigne Omnivore, the natural wine mini-bible.  Because the natural wine church has many mansions; you will discover a constellation of stars lurking in its firmament. Natural wine growers don’t work according precise calibrations of sulphur levels, they seek to express the quality of the grapes from their naturally farmed vineyard by keeping interventions to a bare minimum.  You are thus allowed to take with you the wines of Dominique Lafon, Ann Leflaive, Aubert de Villaine, Bize-Leroy, Jean-Marc Roulot, Olivier Zind-Humbrecht, Andre Ostertag, Jean-Louis Chave, Thierry Allemand, Alain Graillot, Larmandier-Bernier etc.  In certain regions such as Beaujolais, Jura and the Languedoc-Roussillon virtually all the great names are what we might term “natural growers”. Again we don’t seek to make anyone join the family or fit in with an overarching critique. Natural wine is fluid in that vignerons who are extremists row back from their position, whilst others, who start out conventionally, feel emboldened to take greater risks by reducing the interventions.

18. Natural wines don’t age well. Hit or myth? Myth! It is true that many natural wines are intended to be drunk in the first flush of fruit preferably from the fridge. So sue them for being generous and gouleyant. Ironically, many white wines with skin contact and deliberate oxidation have greater longevity and bone structure than red wines. But it is simply not true to assert that natural wines can’t age. A 1997 Hermitage from Dard et Ribo was staggeringly profound (et in Parkadia ego), old magnums of Foillard’s Morgon Cote de Py become like grand cru Burgundy as they morgonner, some of Breton Bourgueils demand that you tarry ten years before becoming to grips with their grippiness. Last year we had a 10.5% Gamay d’Auvergne from Stéphane Majeune, as thin as a pin, and still as fresh as a playful slap with a nettle, whereas the conventional big-named Burgs, Bordeaux and Spanish whatnots all collapsed under the weight of expectation and new oak. If the definition of an ageworthy wine is that you can still taste the knackered lacquer twenty years after, then give me the impertinence of youth any day.

19. Natural wines are unpredictable. You said it, kiddo. And three cheers for that. Their sheer perversity is embodied in these lines by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
And all things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim...

20. 19, 20, my glass is empty. As it should be - it was a glass of delicious wine from Maxime Magnon.

Natural wine recognises that not everything can be made in a petrie dish. To capture the spirit of the vineyard and the flavour of the grape, one has to let go. Natural wine is the freedom to get it wrong, and the freedom to get it very right indeed. Natural wine relishes and embraces the contradictions and dangers inherent in not being in control.

We want people to drink without fear or favour, not worry about right and wrong, leave critical judgement on hold, and enjoy wine in its most naked form.