750Daily: Natural Winemakers at UC/Davis

As linked in WineTerroirist, there’s an interesting article by BetsyAndrews:

on a (small) group of winemakers coming out of Davis whose focus is on making natural wines. They feel
that bringing a scientific background into play in making natural wines they eliminate the faults that plague
natural wines, like brett-laden & mousey wines, made by seat-of-the-pants natural winemakers. I’ve tried
the MarthaStouman natural wines and they’re quite good, clean & well-made. I’m not sure, though, this is gonna
play well with SweetAlice!!
What particularly interested me is the encouragement they got from Enology/Vit faculty like AndyWaterhouse
and AndrewWalker. That’s a very good sign. What also struck me is that some of them, as students, were making
natural wines there in the UC/Davis Mondavi winemaking facility, a state-of-the-art winery filled w/ high-tech equipment
that boggles the mind.
Anyway…a good read.
Tom

Thanks for posting the link, Tom - very nice article. There are a couple of producers that are new to me that I’d like to learn more about.

It’s always nice when myths and stereotypes are debunked like.Yep, UC Davis has always had the reputation of producing formula-based winemakers, but the professors there have always encouraged experimentation and thinking outside the box - or at least have allowed it.

Grads have included folks like Randall Graham for gosh sakes!