I’m all for natural winemaking right up to the point where they decide how much sulfur to use (or not use) for bottling. The supply chain is generally insufficient for no (and maybe low) sulfur wines IMO.
Having said all that, the amount of hand-wringing is totally out of proportion to the impact of these wines in the market. Alice couldn’t even dream of doing a fraction of the harm that Parker inflicted in the second half of his career.
Having met and watched a tasting with Alice Feiring, she is by no means an elitist.
I don’t agree with her on much, but I do sympathize very much with her having to watch the commodification of something she cares about deeply. I have little love for the dogma of natural wine, or the uneducated romanticizing of small farms. (We’ve been no till for 13 years and while it limits leaf canopy, fruit yields have remained unchanged. Not to speak of Mr. Kajimi’s vineyard, only my own experience, but while plenty of pretty insects abound so too the less attractive ones.) But she has my sympathy today.
Another two minutes I’ll never get back.
As usual, she doesn’t make any sense.
“They used selected yeasts”!!!
Quelle horreur!!!
Were those “unnatural” in some way?
Think about it. Somebody found some grapes. He made some wine with it. Everyone liked it. He propagated those grapes. He made more wine. Someone took cuttings from those “natural” grape vines, grafted them onto rootstocks from a different continent and planted them in neat rows. There were no other crops. All the same grapes. That monoculture was so damned natural you got goosebumps just looking at it.
Just as it is reaching peak fame, the previously innocent world of natural wine is coming under threat by opportunists and big business.
This is her problem.
She’s trying to toot her horn as having been somehow significant. Problem is that nobody cares.
There is no doubt that the ‘natural wine’ movement has grown beyond the very small base it had just a decade ago, and it’s now possible to find multiple natural wine bars in many major cities across the country. The ‘movement’ is probably ‘louder’ than it is ‘known’ at the general consumer level and I believe this is one of those cases where those on this board and similar wine folks are probably more ‘in the know’ than most.
I can certainly understand her ‘frustration’ at seeing somethng that she thought of as ‘pure’ become something else. Of course, this phenomenon is not anything new - anytime something becomes a bit more ‘popular’, many want to jump on board, and some are more ‘true’ to the original premises than others.
One of my frustrations with this piece is that there is no self reflection on the industry itself and the problems that continue to plague it by some of here biggest allies. if the idea here is to ‘capture the purity of site’, how does excess VA, brett, mousiness and other faults make this happen? And yes, I would say the same about wines made using ‘conventional’ techniques - it just doesn’t seem to happen as often with these these days.
And one funny side bar - her ‘excitement’ about the farmer who is looking for ‘balance between the vine and the land’, something that gives here goosebumps . . . in my very first Viticulture class I had at (egads) UC Davis, taught by Andrew Walker, the concept of ‘vine balance’, being ‘one with the land’, and the role of winemakers/viticulturists in trying to achieve this balance, was at the heart of this lecture. Egads!!!
Cheers.
Awwww, Greg…give her credit. She did save the World from Parkerization!! Says right there on the cover of her first book.
Tom
Or a big city phenom?
+1
ITB perspective:I am genuinely starting to believe the 'under’manipulation market has the exact same biases as the 'over’manipulation one, their preferred flavor profile is just at opposite ends of the Bell curve. We have several distributors that are heavily focused on natural wines, and it seems to happen once a month that they bring by a lineup for tasting of 5-6 wines, reds and whites from various countries and grape varieties, and I just can’t get past the utter same-ness of flavors across them all. The sour/brett dominates the palate too often.* And there are just as many customers that come through asking what is our most funky wine we carry that walk out if we don’t have something extreme enough because we considered it flawed and unenjoyable; same scenario for folks looking for oaky/buttery Chards, or the latest bourbon aged semi-sweet red. Same mouthwash, different cheek.
*Not to say there aren’t very good examples out there, probably carry 40+ wines that fall on the more natural side, with roughly 70% of our store falling somewhere on the Organic/Biodynamic/‘Lutte Raisonee’ spectrum
In fairness to Feiring, she recently wrote about the fact that there are too many natural wines with clear defects.
my two favourite takes on ‘Natural’ Wine,
one from the Wachau’s master of Wösendorf, Rudi Pichler, who states:
‘When my fermentation sticks, i add cultured yeast, quite naturally’.
and my own tendency to ask:
‘Natural’ wine? Tell me about your ungrafted vines…
Disclaimer: I don’t often find natural wine I like and wouldn’t say that it’s something I’m “into”, and, frankly, after what happened with her discouraging a colleague from coming forward about a sexual assault, I wouldn’t say I even want to claim her as “my team”, but, like Marcus said above, I do understand what she’s going through and empathize.
This is precisely what i mean when I say if you’ve not been there when this sort of thing happens to something you’ve poured your heart and soul with no expectation of reward into it’s hard to understand. A lot of people are doing “natural wine” because it’s something they care about and would do absent much money or recognition simply because it’s something they believe in, and get a sense of community and solidarity from. This sort of community and solidarity and “we do this even though it’ll never make us any money because this is something we care about” attitude exists all over, local or DIY music scenes are a great example, as are a lot of food co-ops and organic farms.
Whenever big money comes in and tries to repackage that thing as a branding exercise it tends to invite things like trust-fund poverty tourists looking for a slice of authenticity, focus-grouped also-rans, consolidation, it tends to drive up prices as scarce resources are out-competed for by big business and trust fund kids, and it tends to poison the solidarity and sense of community which was a big part of the appeal in the first place. People think this is about money or fame and I’m not sure how to explain that it isn’t and never was.
Even if I don’t subscribe to her ethos to the letter, I get it. She thinks she’s doing the right thing, and that’s her motivation for doing it. Now big business is coming in and selling a lie to people branded as this ideal she helped build, and frankly, even if you don’t agree with her ideas, I’m not sure why it’s so hard to understand why she’d be upset.
I think I’m about to take a beating, but…
Alice is a friend and someone I’ve enjoyed quite a few bottles with. Though I am happy to drink a less than natural wine - just needs to please my palate. But I like some surprise in my bottles so I am as happy to drink a Scholium Project Blow Out as I am a Lapierre NS. What I read here is, much as when I grew up, the counter-culture and the peace movement were eventually coopted to become the Pepsi Generation - Alice fears the loss of innocence, comraderie and integrity of that motivated the early enthusiasts as the movement goes more mainstream. Alice is well aware that natural wines appeal to a modest audience willing to take some risk when they open a bottle. I don’t think she is preaching that there is only one way to make wine - she’s not saying that here and as far as I know has never said. What she has always said is that to her taste wines made in a specific manner that she refers to as “natural” are far more pleasing". What I read in this piece is mostly a warning for those who do seek out natural wines that if they still want that experience they need to be a little more thoughtful and careful about the wines they are purchasing.
I think you hit the nail right on the head, and said it more concisely than I did.
There are and have been lots of natural producers making really good to great wine and a lot of others making bad wine. The ones make good wine can trade on the wine being, well good. The ones making bad wines need to find something else to hang their hats on, so they market the natural aspect, this was true when organic and bio-dynamic were new and trendy and it’s true now. Just like with organic, it is no real surprise big wine companies see the marketing potential and are taking advantage, they didn’t get big by accident. It is unfortunate, but also not unexpected, that some and not just the big guys, would muddy the definition of natural to shoehorn products in to take advantage. See the Sonoma Coast AVA
much as when I grew up, the counter-culture and the peace movement were eventually coopted to become the Pepsi Generation
Side note - The person who wrote that jingle was able to have a career because of it. She was a hard-working jazz musician. She would have had a career anyway because she’s so good, but the income from that helped take some of the anxiety out of her life. She was a friend of my wife’s. I never asked her about “natural” wine but she’d almost be the poster child for it.
I typed out a really long and possibly self-righteous response trying to explain why these types of examples miss the point, because you hear them all the time when trying to explain this sort of thing. I gave up because I can’t seem to convey what it’s like to live inside the heart of a counter-culture true believer without relying on examples that only make sense if you already understand it. It’s circular and won’t be satisfying, much like how people look at me like I’m crazy when I try and explain why most old-school Portlanders I know hate Portlandia and it has nothing to do with having a thin skin or sour grapes. All I’ll say is that caring about things isn’t shameful or embarrassing, and pursuing those ideals can be intrinsically satisfying completely absent remuneration to a lot of people and it’s disappointing and disheartening when your work pursuing those goals is undone or made harder by a cash-grab.
I actually think Natural wine is more prominent than ya’ll think among the general population. Amongst the 30s crowd, the ones that drink wine are getting more and more into natural wine. It seems to be something they seek. But that could just be a major city thing as well. But there wouldn’t be all these natural wine geared stores popping up in major cities (that don’t ship) if there wasn’t the significant foot traffic to keep them afloat.
Yeah, I can’t really think of a new conventional wine anything opening here in seattle in the past few years but can count on at least two hands the number of natural wine related businesses that have cropped up and are, as far as i can tell, thriving.
exactly. In the past 2 years my friend has opened two more natural wine stores and he said they are doing really well in the LA area. The clientele is fairly young in the mid 20s to mid 30s normally.
Natural wine: not dead at retail!
I’m still curious if the use of an optical sorting table disqualifies a wine from being “natural”?
Or sorting out earwigs/lady bugs/ snakes from the harvested grapes violates being “natural”?
Both are probably yes.
Tom