Neal Martin on Natural Wines

Borrowed from a Facebook post from Harmon Skurnik:

Neal Martin of TWA on “Natural Wines”. Bravo!

"For the record, I do not detest natural wines. Trust me, I’ve got a Jules Chauvet tattoo. (Actually, that’s a lie; I just stencil it on whenever I visit one of the so-called “Gang of Four.”) I have rated many in this very publication highly—evidence available to view on the database. By the same token, I never put them on a pedestal just because the winemaker follows non-interventional winemaking and leaves the bags of sulfur unopened. I judge what sloshes around the glass. Therein lies the problem. Without the protective layer of SO2, natural wines can vary as wildly as the yeast that made them once they have been shipped abroad. Those that love natural wines accept variability as part of the package. It is no different to how most of us put up with corks knowing that a percentage are spoiled by TCA. When your job is to match what I find in my glass to yours, then it can become problematic if there is wanton unpredictability.

On one occasion, I enjoyed an evening with three natural wine producers: Christophe Pacalet, Mathieu Lapierre and Agnès and Alex Foillard (wife and son of Jean Foillard). It was so refreshing to hear these three talented winemakers espouse the philosophy of natural winemaking without lecturing, without a sense of dogma. Mathieu Lapierre produces his Morgon with and without SO2, thereby giving importers and consumers the choice. He has never given the slightest hint that one is superior to the other, and frankly, it is not easy to tell the difference side by side. And it is worth remembering that the godfather of the natural wine movement, Jules Chauvet, never wrote that winemaking should eschew sulfur altogether. Rather, he advised its minimal use during the fermentation so that native yeasts can translate where they come from without interference, as part of a holistic approach that goes back to removing chemicals and herbicides in the vineyard and carries through to bottling without fining or filtration. This is actually where the late Chauvet and I would disagree because I believe terroir is articulated with bottle age, as testified by the thousands of bottles I have tasted over the years, including many tasted blind where terroir was unmistakable. Too little sulfur is just as bad, if not worse than too much, since all you can glean from such wine is the winemaker’s thinking rather than the patch of dirt it came from.

I loathe the hectoring that surrounds natural wines: the religious zeal and the black and white polemics. I detest the idea of one straightjacketed approach being superior to any other and the snobbery it entails. Not wishing to tar everyone with the same brush (but I am going to anyway), I am tired of meeting sommeliers bragging about their oh-so-bloody natural wine list, speaking as if any wine that has ever used sulfur should be cast out and belittled, looking down their noses at the panoply of sensational life-affirming wines from Henri Jayer to Henri Lurton, from Manfred Prüm to Manfred Krankl, Max Schubert to Von Schubert, now deemed heretical by ideology. The manner in which consumers are brainwashed into believing that natural wine is the be all and end all is, to coin a mot du jour, fake news. I prefer my fermented grape juice not to be the color of Donald Trump and reek of cider and puke. Many well-crafted and fault-free natural wines deserve their place in cellars, wine lists and dinner tables, and add another color to the spectrum of wines…like orange. However, you can put it on the record that this writer could not give a Maria Thün-prepared shit whether it is made organically, biodynamically, with or without sulfur and nor should you. Nor should anyone."

Well…can we say SweetAlice here??
I couldn’t agree more w/ Neal’s take on the subject.
Tom

Sounds good to me.

Well written and spot on.

Except it’s at least a decade too late. It’s not really like that anymore.

in what sense?

What puzzles the dickens out of the natural wine thing is who is anointed as a natural wine producer and who is not. Using SO2 is by NO means a disqualifier for being seen as a natural wine/winery at least in some (relatively large) circles of the natural wine pantheon. Nor is filtering. Nor is using vineyards that are not organic. But you can use organic vineyards, not filter and use minimal SO2 dosages and not be seen as a natural winery. In Oregon, as of late, this has become especially true. I don’t care. I don’t need to be seen as a natural winery. I’m just saying I don’t get why the entry to the club is entirely and utterly subjective and the standards vary not only entirely but vastly.

Hi Jim
It is indeed subjective, and that is the danger of a simplistic label ‘natural’ to represent something that has lots of variables. I understand some object to screwcaps, yet here is a solution that positively demands reduced S02 additions.

If the competing authorities could get together, then I could see an alternative whereby a set of answers to relevant questions are submitted by wineries wishing for accreditation. Based on these answers, a simple scale e.g. one leaf, two leaves, three leaves is awarded according to the overall impression based on the answer. Up to them whether they want to police this, but the costs would ramp up significantly if they close to do that (c.f. demeter for Bio-Dynamics).

I can’t see it happening soon, not with competing showcase events and differing views of what natural really is. Wild west for a bit longer I reckon.

Whilst Neal appears like he was trying to be balanced, I found that piece to lean a little against the natural wine movement, mostly in such emotive terms as ‘cider and puke’, ‘religious zeal’ etc. while avoiding the equally stupid barbs that fly the other way. His comment about judging the wine in the glass is something we all need to do in this often adversarial argument.

Personally I’m open to try & taste, though with cellaring very much a key part of the hobby for me, the concerns about which wines will survive / improve in the cellar will probably keep me from delving too deep. However I am keen that some of the thinking challenges the wine industry of just how much intervention / treatment is necessary. In that sense, I’d love to see an inclusive accreditation, that acknowledged those making some effort / treat only when absolutely necessary, rather than a simple binary choice of natural vs unnatural (sic.). That graded scale alluded to above.

Regards
Ian

Very sensible, I think.

Totally agree here, Ian.
And I, too, picked up a bit of a bias against natural wines.
Tom

OMG, a little bit of a bias against natural wines.

That’s ought to be terrible.

Against the wines, or the winemakers and adherents? Could be both I suppose, but he seemed more chafed about “the hectoring that surrounds natural wines: the religious zeal and the black and white polemics.” He did note that the inconsistency bottle-to-bottle was irksome I suppose.

If this doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.

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I disagree with that, at least as far as not caring how the grapes are grown; I don’t think it’s at all a given that the various chemical treatments done to our foodstuffs are entirely benign. Biodynamic might be mostly wasted effort (but not harmful), and I don’t have very strong thoughts about sulfur, but I’m fine with organic anything that I’m putting in my mouth.

However I am keen that some of the thinking challenges the wine industry of just how much intervention / treatment is necessary. In that sense, I’d love to see an inclusive accreditation, that acknowledged those making some effort / treat only when absolutely necessary, rather than a simple binary choice of natural vs unnatural (sic.). That graded scale alluded to above.

I think one problem is that some very good winemakers who follow many of the precepts of natural winemaking don’t really care if they are accredited or not and won’t submit wines to any panel.

Hi Eric
Indeed true, though unless I was strident in my approach and felt the ‘natural’ label was the most important selling point for my wine, I’m not sure I would bother if I were Foradori, Pepe or the like.

What we have at the moment is a binary choice, albeit inconsistently applied.

I’m sure the strident natural wine enthusiasts would distrust a sliding scale, seeing it as diluting the aims, however it would be sad if they saw it as an all or nothing choice, rather than an opportunity to help all producers make positive choices to cut back on the pharma/chemical where practical.

Jim’s point about the difficulty of defining natural wine is spot on; and for all the words that have been expended on the subject, sometimes by very bright people, we are still a long way from agreeing on any oenological definition. After all, if SO2 is not the line in the sand, then why isn’t DRC ranked at the top of any list of natural wine producers? All of which suggests we may be looking for the wrong kind of definition.

Simon Schama’s remark on the historian J. H. Plumb, ‘stymied by an aesthetic in search of a didactic’, has often come to mind when reflecting on the natural wine movement. But perhaps it would be fairer to say that ‘natural wine’ is more usefully understood as a movement in wine culture than in wine making.

Someone does not approve and is preparing The Cow Horn of Heretical Pain

Exactly.

I ended up at a tasting/book signing of Alice’s in NYC last year at a place called 10 Bells (I believe). They were tasting a flight of very, very natural Georgian wines. They were, (ahem, cough, hmm, ahem, cough, cough) interesting.

What I found is that regardless of the potability of these wines was that the conversation all revolved about history and process. Those were ABSOLUTELY the defining characteristics to the tasters.

the ten bells is a very poor caricature of the natural wine world. for me it is possibly the worst wine bar in nyc. also they charge something like $500 for a bottle of selosse initial which is absolutely ridiculous considering the atmosphere and lack of service.