Top Notes of Poo (NYMag on "Natural Wine")

I might just leave this here and let everyone fire away. Some decent thoughts, and a good deal of head scratching. From NY Magazine/Grub Street …

Top Notes of Poo: Natural wine is weird, funky, even dirty. Sommeliers are obsessed. but does it actually taste good?

Nitpicks are inevitable, but that’s a good, faitrly in-depth article for a general interest publication.

Great Quote:

“And so what used to be considered a f*ck-up is now considered character”…

Well…a quite interesting article, but, as these types of articles tend to be, a rather simplification of “natural” wines.
What constitutes a “natural” wine is open for debate. My definition is pretty simple…if SweetAlice says it’s natural…then end of discussion.
I applaud Jon’s stand on the subject. Call it like it is. There are some dreadful ones out there that do not taste good at all. And some that do. And some that are merely different/interesting, but I wouldn’t bother to buy again. But don’t dogmatically accept natural wines as good.
Actually, I don’t find Brett all that common a flaw in natural wines.
My recent experience with the LaClarine Albariño is a good example. When I did a P&P of it, I sorta liked it, if a bit different. The next day, after sitting overnight in the fridge, half consumed, it was dreadful. Undrinkable. Smelled sorta the same. But dreadful hantavirus, stale mouse pee and poo on the palate. Brett?? Not as I recognize brett. Not a flaw I could identify, technically. I can’t imagine anybody, even SweetAlice, would like it. Would an SO2 dosage have saved this wine? Got no idea.
Tom

That sounds like mouse taint. Alice Feiring has written about it quite a bit (and yes, she considers it a flaw)

So why wasn’t it in the wine originally and what caused it??
Tom

The torch you carry for this woman may be one of the most compelling “unrequited love” stories of the internet era.

[cheers.gif]

sounds like spoilage of the wine that became more prominent after it was opened/stored overnight, maybe undesirable aerobic bacterial fermentation – I’ve seen that a few times with other natural wines. I’ve had tastes of the La Clarine Albarino multiple times and that was clearly a flawed bottle. No idea if sulfur would have prevented that, but I have to say I’m curious how you can smell hantavirus, that’s a mighty acute sense of smell that would impress any virologist.

I have definitely noticed natural wines be horribly worse the day after opening.

I have also had done that just taste bad immediately after opening, including 2007 Radikon Jadot, rotten meat qualities

Which Is a similar quality I have smelled on day-old natural wines

Some natural wines have tasted fine

Bug category of course, I am using the strict category of someone who takes Alice as a starting point and then defines strictly from there

Other point: other nice wine types probably began as mistakes: yellow wine, Pineau des Charentes

Heck, wine likely began as a “mistake” - grape/juice transported and fermented by accident and yummy fun

Which brings us back to natural wine

If it was mouse taint, it was in the wine originally but it may not have been all that noticeable at first. I believe there’s still some controversy about what the source is, but I think there’s a consensus that it’s bacterial, that it increases with exposure to oxygen, and can be eliminated with the addition of sulfur. It’s not a widely covered phenomenon, but if you google “mouse taint” or “gout de souris” you’ll find a few articles about it.

“(As far as two-word phrases capable of ruining bourgeois dinner parties in New York go, natural wine is up there with Lena Dunham and democratic socialism.)” yuuup

Or dogmatically reject them as bad.

So here’s a question that others may know better than I do:

When wine bars feature mainly ‘natural wines’, do they only serve them on Day 1 or do they repour them on Day 2 as well? And if they do pour on Day 2, how do they ‘ensure’ the wine stays ‘good’ after Day 1?

The article is an interesting one - and I agree with Tom that I rarely have gotten brett in natural wines. The idea that brett is somehow a ‘telltale sign’ of a good natural wine is so darned interesting - and just oh so wrong.

I also enjoyed Bonne’s take on the subject - and the punk analogy is a good one. What happens when a ‘natural winemaker’ becomes the ‘Green Day’ of the category? :slight_smile:

Cheers . . .

For once I agree with Bonné too.

“If you are not, like, tattooed, beard, dirty wine, you are not ‘natural enough.’ ”

Or illiterate enough. After all, tattoos are the epitome of “natural” and unadorned and unmanipulated and a wonderful way to ensure that what you thought was cool when you were 18 is advertised for the rest of your life because you’re, like, um, forever cool. Mommy said so.

I don’t think the article did any good for anyone.

Cedric Nicaise believes sulfur dioxide is necessary to preserve it. Frenchette’s Jorge Riera believes it mangles flavors and makes hangovers worse

They “believe” and that’s enough. Facts? Those are whatever your friends agree with and also believe.

Yep, that’s always going to be a ‘challenge’ when it comes to ‘natural’ wines . . . facts. We don’t need no stinking ‘facts’. All is takes are gatekeepers to give their ‘impressions’ - isn’t that good enough?

Cheers.

Instead, they offer origin stories.

Which aren’t in and of themselves bad and can add a level of interest. But imagine you’re the hipster stopping in for something so cool it’s painful, and someone says “Here’s an orange wine aged in amphorae made by a hermit in Dalmatia.”

Died and gone to heaven.

Even got that ae thing going on!

Wherever Dalmatia is it just has to be somewhere brilliant.

Any idea what those grapes are? Or what they’re likely to produce in terms of wine? Any idea of what other wines are like? Any idea of wine in general? Based on first hand knowledge and tasting or based on conversations and reading?

Simple truth man. That’s what the wine is. You know all you need to know from one bottle. Now let’s try some beer.

Exactly. There are natural wines I’ve loved and ones that I’ve hated. Ditto for unnatural [stirthepothal.gif] wines.

It’s a category that I’m glad exists (along with a lot of others) but I don’t regard it as a religion.

Natural wine is neither good nor bad but drinking makes it so.

Yup, this. Some strains of brett produce it, but apparently the most common source is lactobacillus when it gets too much oxygen and there’s no sulfites.

Although it is often noticeable right after opening, some wines do exhibit with delay only after some air exposure. For example one of my friends was in a tasting of Gauby wines and they performed really well there. He took small pours in tiny vials for me to sample them next day - four out of six wines were horribly mousy by then. Even he agreed that they were completely undrinkable, but also pointed out that the wines were definitely clean the day before.

But the molecule (THP, tetrahydropyridine) should also go away with age. Some people say that wines that have been horribly mousy when they are young can be completely fault-free after some years in a cellar. There’s also some anecdotal evidence that brett might consume THP molecules in bottle.

It’s all about the spin. When benchmark wines are too rare and/or expensive to taste the flipside works to drink the rare, odd and (potentially) poorly made from far away lands.

It all depends. I find potentially funky but bright, crunchy and drinkable natural wines well-made, whereas overoaked, high-alcohol jam bombs are poorly made to me.

But I do agree with the notion that there are lots of poorly made natural wines out there as well. However, it seems that many of the vehement opponents of the movement think that any wine made “naturally” is automatically flawed, which I find rather hilarious.