Alice Quixote rides again

Only the most naturalest natural wine will do.

As someone who has mourned the commodification of his own special thing in the last decade or so I understand where she’s coming from at least, and anyone who thinks she’s just being elitist is misunderstanding her. At the risk of sounding elitist myself, it’s hard to explain unless you’ve been there.

“But that’s in part the appeal, to me, of natural wine — as a pure expression of honesty, nutrition, culture, poetry and connection to land…”

“I assumed he meant the balance between farm work and life. But Mr. Kagami told me no, he meant between the vine and the land.
Goosebumps rose on my forearm.”

Somewhere in the world there’s a cult missing one of its easily mesmerized followers. Wonder if she spent any time with Bikram?

-af

Where is Ron Washam when you need him???

Don’t really want to pile on to what is sure to be a train wreck of a thread, but even granting a decent amount of poetic license, opening with “By now pretty much everyone on earth, save for those caught in a Yellow Tail time warp, has heard of “natural” wine.” is not even remotely true and absurd to say. ‘Natural wine’ remains a niche even within the broader wine universe.

I wish I liked “Natural Wines” more. I completely understand the innocence and romanticism of it all, but still waiting for that “ah ha” moment taste wise…

I’d say “everyone on earth” is a bit hyperbolic but to say that there hasn’t been an enormous groundswell of adoption in all the major food cities of the world and lots and lots and lots of press either lionizing or lamenting natural wine in the last year or so also feels willfully ignorant. I can’t throw a tube of cultured yeast 5 feet without hitting a natural wine program or pop up these days. It feels to me like it’s all anyone talks about anymore. Seriously, all our friends who thought it was weird we even drank wine 6 months ago are bringing orange wine and pet nat to parties on the regular nowadays. It’s wild how fast it happened. Maybe it’s an under 40 thing?

It’s not about it tasting better is the thing, so you might be waiting a while unfortunately. I’ve had good ones and bad ones. Though there’s tons of conventional wine that tastes horrible too, so I wonder if, on balance, the proportion is equal, but there’s so much less natural wine so it sticks out. " I wish i liked Natural Wines more" is a thing i’ve been known to say as well.

She seemed to be conflating two issues at points: (1) the lack of a strict definition of “natural wine,” which allows it to be employed on bottles that aren’t “natural” by any normal definition and (2) the growing interest of big producers in making natural wines.

If (2) leads to misuse of the term “natural,” I’m with her. But at points, she seems to be arguing that big is bad and we should favor small producers. That strikes me as a nice thought, but sort of sentimental. It’s just like the objection to large-scale organic agriculture. Is it really bad if someone figures out how to scale up production of organic milk or natural wine so the price falls? I don’t think so, other things being equal.

I also didn’t realize that, on strict definitions of “natural” (like hers), machine harvesting, fining and filtering are no-nos. Machine harvesting may (or may not) provide the best quality fruit, but I see it as another large- versus small-scale production issue. I don’t see how it’s a definitional criteria. (Are tractors in the vineyard OK, or only animals?) I often prefer unfined, unfiltered wines, but I don’t object to filtered wines as unnatural. (What about cold-stabilizing or filtering sweet wines to remove yeast to the wine doesn’t referment in the bottle? The alternative is sulfur, right?)

The most surprising thing to me was that this ended up in the NYT’s Sunday Review section. It couldn’t help suspecting it was a coup on the part of her publisher’s publicist.

Bryan,
I would not equate orange wine to natural wine. Most orange/skin-contact whites (which are not one & the same) are not natural in the strict sense of the word.
Do you regard CharlesShaw wines or Rombauer Chard as “horrible”???
Tom

I would humbly suggest you and Alice go hang in a Total Wine for a couple hours, and observe the buyer habits of those not bee-lining for the box wine or Yellow Tail, but also those passing right by Cote Rotie and grower Champers. They’re content with the Ravenswood Zin, Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling, and Louis Martini Cab (all fine wines), or whatever house brand TW is able to lure them into that day. I would wager a big chunk of them are fairly interested in wine, but only vaguely familiar with the idea of natural wine, and when pressed (pun INTENDED) wouldn’t be able to say much about what it means or represents.

I think the upswing in interest in orange wine and skin-contact whites in the states is a knock-on effect of the upswing in popularity of natural wines, of course they’re not a category of natural wines strictly, but i think for a lot of people they go hand in hand.

WRT $3 Chuck and Rombauer I’m sure whether or not they’re horrible is a personal preference thing. Not sure what you’re asking there. If you’re curious what I like, I think a mousey cidery natural wine is gross and so is an overblown werthers original-flavored cali chard. I like to think I can find things I enjoy in the middle 8 deciles of wine between AFWE and yak-palate.

Yup, John… good points. Her vilifying machine harvesting struck me as an overreach. “Nothing added, nothing taken away”??
I’m pretty sure SweetAlice would proscribe optical sorting tables. And probably manually removing earwigs, lady bugs, and snakes from the incoming grapes.
Tom

Oh, i never implied people know anything definite about it, but it’s definitely “the it thing” right now. I’m not even in the industry. My friends don’t like wine. At all. They don’t care about it. They know what it is because they eat at restaurants, and there’s been a huge move in the restaurant world (at least in large coastal cities) toward natural wine programs.

Well, Bryan… I was only trying to understand your definition of “horrible”.
Tom

Lets add everything that’s drinkable but utterly charmless onto that pile too, life’s too short :wink:
I like to think of myself not as a snob but as a hedonistic aesthete champagne.gif


Actually, when i was talking about natural vs conventional and “horrible” I wasn’t trying to impose my definition of horrible, more that not everyone likes all conventional wines, and that actually, a much smaller subset of conventional wines is what most people enjoy, this subset being different for everyone. I posit that there may be a similarly sized subset of natural wines (from a proportionality standpoint) that any given person may also like, though given most peoples’ lack of diverse exposure to natural wine and lacking a robust historical and press record, it may be harder to hone in on what natural wines one may like compared to conventional wines that are well covered and have a wealth of historical tasting notes and renown. I don’t know the answer to this, and honestly my limited personal experience doesn’t bear this out, but I can’t run an experiment that would prove or disprove this hypothesis.

My experience has not generally ben favorable with natural wines, although I’ve had many fine examples. I think there is far more variability in natural wines, which I would expect. My favorite story was a white Nova Scotia wine at Raymonds in St Johns Newfoundland (I forget the label). When the somm poured it, she seemed really excited that out of the four bottles of that wine she served that evening, each one was different. As a consumer, I’m not so interested in that king of variation.

LOL it is all too easy to create variation in wine. Someone should tell her about aging and storage temperatures!

The restaurant is top rate - many consider the beat in Canada and they are respected for their wine program. My guess is that the basis for the variations occurred prior to the wine’s arrival in the restaurant

I do think there is a big element to this movement from the under-40 crowd. A lot of the very best classic, traditional wines have been priced out of their ability to sample them or on such an exclusive waiting list they have no conceivable opportunity to try them. With many of these wines they have the chance to get in on them at the ground floor, and the flavor is so often ‘anti-establishment’ that there is not as much a chance those that have been hoarding Cru Burgundies or Cali cult wines will start trying to elbow their way up to the table.
I also think there is a LOT less emphasis on the sanctity of the vineyard site, more farming and methodology over site supremacy. Many of the producers champion long forgotten grapes and orphaned vineyards, not just for quality or flavor, but simply because of the cost of the grapes is not nearly at the same premium, allowing them for room in the budget for the risks they take making these wines.This style of winemaking travels very well, almost like brewing in some ways. You would be surprised the number of natural wine projects emerging in Virginia, quite competently, at the hand of well regarded wine makers as ‘side projects’ away from the primary wine production. Mostly 1-3 barrel productions, lots of coferments and Pet-Nats. Even seeing more and more cider makers getting into the act.