One of the dangers of writing something like that is precisely the reaction on this board. I sort of had to accept that when I wrote it - and, when it is published, you have to take the flak - that’s part of being a sometime opinion writer. This was a bit special in that I wasn’t necessarily being honest with the audience. Again, when one does this, one has to accept the consequences of that, which I do (although I feel I should be clear that I haven’t yet tasted, or rated, any of Snoop Dog’s vinous output). I sort of hoped that the last line of the piece (which, I think, was modified slightly before it was published) would perhaps help shed a little light into the soupy depths into which I had plunged but obviously that it didn’t function. Ah well.
The piece was intended to take a bunch of arguments used against Natural wines and the natty crowd and just turn them against another category. Claiming that “mature wine” has a superiority attached to it - and an implication that everything else is “immature” or “juvenile wine” is (to my mind) every bit as disingenuous an argument as saying that the title “Natural wine” has an inherent superiority to it and that, by inference, everything else is unnatural.
The insistence that because a lot of Natural wines don’t have primary fruit flavours, they are somehow treacherous. And this complaint that because there is no definition attached to what a Natural wine is, this renders the category opaque: ref. when is a wine “drinking well”?
Also, the oft-repeated mantra that Natural wines have a fault problem (ref. sous-bois, mushrooms, etc.) and that they all taste the same. Or the captivated generation (again, these sweeping generalisations) that enjoy these wines without questioning what it is they are drinking.
Now, of course, that’s a dangerous game to play and like many allegories, they are full of issues. Furthermore, the very fact I’m writing this shows, I suppose, a degree of failure in my endeavour.
There are, I think, elements of truth in it (as with critiques of Natural wines - a term I don’t like all that much, but it saves extended explanations) and I have indeed tasted some terrible aged wines. But also some truly glorious ones. We had a particularly wonderful 2008 Chapelle-Chambertin from Cecile Tremblay - oh, and a glorious 2017 Dauvissat La Forest - last night, for instance. So it’s not all bad, right?
Doubtless, people will now leap on the poverty of my allegory, and the rest of this thread (if it goes on) will be filled with how I can’t equate mature wine and natural wine as terms, and so on. And that’s fair enough - have at it.
To be honest, though, it was strangely good for my mental wellbeing to read every piece of outrage and think to myself “well, maybe now you know a little bit about what it is like to read all this hate-filled nonsense against a wine category you love, despite some of its flaws”.
In the ideal world of my mind, it is a reconciliatory piece. But as you’re all by now no doubt aware, my mind takes more than a little getting used to.
All the best to you all
Olly Styles