Tom has a very long history of making provocative statements that he only somewhat believes. He’s mostly messing with people to sidetrack the discussion.
I’ve noticed.
However, this is an argument I remember him seeing many times before. Furthermore, my answer was not directed specifically to Tom, but to everybody else thinking of raising the same points again.
That won’t stop them or him.
I would like to see the full definition, rather than the press release. Wonder when that will be available.
Well, David/Otto…my questions are only partly TFIC. I would argue the netting for birds is a manipulation.
I asked a local distributor of “natural” wines if putting grapes thru a sorting table, where they come in contact with hard plastic or metal tables and peoples hands, was a manipulaton. “No” was his response. Then I asked him if use of an optical sorter was a manipulation? “Of course” he responded. “What’s the difference??” No answer. The answer is obvious. Only well-heeled/monied wineries can afford an optical sorter. And we know that those kind of wineries cannot make “natural” wines. It can only be some mustache-Pete farmer in a wool beret and muddy boots who can make a “natural” wine!!
Is there some case-limit of production in which a wine can no longer be considered as "natural "??
I think my questions are legitimate and not just “stir the pot.gif”.
Tom
Yes, there is much that’s unsaid or unclear in the press release linked in the OP.
Good to see this happen and curious what it details. Be prepared to agree and disagree with much of the definition. Really not much different than what defines a “Natural Flavor” in food products. FDA CFR has a definition but not everyone would agree with their interpretation.
Tom
i bet most people will judge the validity of this designation by who participates and who doesn’t. if you don’t have benchmark producers like metras or ganevat in the mix i don’t think it will be viewed with much credibility amongst the natty cognoscenti. and one of the famous marketing pitches of the ‘rock n roll’ producers in natural wine is “he is all organic or bio but just doesn’t like to mess with the certification.”
I think this designation will ultimately lead to higher quality of ‘natural’ wines across the board… some of that has already been happening. I think it will also lead to larger, well-heeled wineries co-opting the movement and the Mustache-Petes at all stages of the industry getting pushed to the wayside. Then a new inscrutable movement will rise to take it’s place. Time to get ready for the extraction revolution? Carbonic as a dirty word?
Yup, Ian…pretty much agree with you. There’s little doubt that some large producers will attempt to co-op the term. That’s why I suggest (only partially facetiously) that there be a case-limit of which you cannot exceed to be a “natural” producer.
Is Ridge a " natural" producer?? Most purists would say “no”. They produce too much wine. Yet they adhere to many practices that “natural” producers follow. PaulDraper refers to it as “pre-industrial” winemaking. That’s good enough for me.
Tom⛹️
Critical question – do we wine snobs start pronouncing it like “naturel” in French?
I’m worried about the H2SO4
“Poor Old Stinky’s dead and gone
His face you’ll see no more
What he thought was H2O
was H2SO4”
Your information is anecdotal, and therefore irrelevant.
I’d love to know how the grapes are manipulated by a netting protecting the grapes from being eaten by animals.
I do find it ridiculous how some producers say that a huge producer can’t make a natural wine. If there ever is a Meiomi Natural Wine which is made with hand-harvested grapes, fermented without yeast inoculations or YAN, vinified without or with minimal sulfites and bottled without fining and filtration, I’d be totally OK to call it natural wine.
Tangentially related: I found it weird when in a tasting one attendee considered a wine aged in a concrete egg vessel as not natural wine. When I questioned her what was her reasoning, she said that the wine is constantly manipulated when the lees are in constant motion during the fermentation is such vessels, making the wines nothing like real, unmanipulated natural wines. ![[scratch.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/42a16863a8714da3c1604419e3eb9206bb87aa50.gif "scratch"){kind=small}
Otto,
It all goes back to the real definition:
Natural wine: what I make
Not natural wine: what you make
I’m looking at this development with gratitude.
It’s like nature putting a stripe on skunks, or a rattle at the end of a snake…it’s my warning to stay away.
I find this designation of wine to be an affectation.
Tom has requested that someone write a eulogy for the small producers.
Maybe sung to the tune of ‘Candle in the Wind’?
Goodbye Mustache Pete…
I agree but have also heard this argument made. I would put it in the same category as canopy management, green harvest, and fires to prevent freezing or frost damage (can you use chemical fire or then we are getting toward the line for some folks?).
I also can’t see why an optical or automated sorting table is different than hand selection - that seems like purely philosophical nonsense. This, and outrage over and a complete ban on machine harvesting, is where I have the hardest time understanding the arbitrariness of the line some would draw.
BTW I searched for the clearly defined compete rules and metrics for the new designation and didn’t find them. Did anyone else?
Jayson - I have a link below.
![[rofl.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}
So here’s a slight clarification:
Up to 30 mg/l of sulfites are allowed in all types of wine. To differentiate between natural wines that contain sulfites and those that are sulphite-free, two logos have been created indicating whether or not the product contains sulfites.
Every year an external entity will control the bottled wine applying for the designation. If the wine has not conformed to the regulations, it has to be marketed as a different brand so as not to mislead consumers.
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/03/france-officially-recognises-natural-wine/
There are two versions of the logo - one that says: “without added sulfites” if the wine contains less than 10 mg/L, and one that says: “lower than 30 mg sulfites.”
No sulfites before or during fermentation.
Here’s their charter, if your French is decent:
The layout and design of the “charter” is interesting.
I think the obsession with sulfur is kind of a red herring. The Romans may or may not have used it - we don’t really know. But we do know that it was used at least since the late middle ages because there are documents referring to it. And it was used by the French in N. Africa because when phylloxera hit, a lot of wine makers headed down there and sulfur was very useful in places that were hotter than some of the French were used to. At that point, the French just wanted wine and there was little stigma attached to drinking wine that was good rather than wine that conformed to some value system. And they believed that a little sulfur helps protect a wine during shipping, which hasn’t changed.
What’s interesting is that they don’t talk much about the growing of the grapes, other than to say that they must be organic. But trellising, green harvesting, leaf-pulling, etc., are all allowed. Not to mention grafted vines and monoclonal viticulture. Selecting rootstock that provides more or less vigor to the scion is OK?
Not sure about hand-harvesting either. Who’s to say that in a short time we won’t have machinery to do it as well or better than humans? We can have drones deliver packages, why not harvest grapes? Technology moves pretty quickly and there’s no reason to imagine that it won’t improve to that point in the near future. Finally, they don’t seem to have a problem with refrigeration or temperature-controlled maceration and fermentation.
I don’t really care what these guys do or what they want to call themselves. The problem with these kinds of things though is that they seem to cast the world in binary terms and they intentionally mislead people. The other day (before the lockdown) I was at a table and this woman sitting next to me said that she wanted to learn about wine and had heard about this “natural wine” thing. She got some from a nearby shop and explained it all to me. The sales clerk at the shop had said that it was wine the way it used to be made centuries ago and the producer was going back to that.
She was excited because she had at home a wine that was like the wine they’d been drinking in the Middle Ages. And then she went on a bit about fermenting different foods and making sauerkraut and kim chee. We agreed to get together and I’d help her wine education and she’d help me with the sauerkraut, since I keep failing there. I did leave her with a slight suspicion that maybe her wine wasn’t exactly what the Capets were drinking.
I think just like AFWE became a badge of honor, I’m going to have some “brutal” wine tonight! Cheers Chris!
One could make a better argument that the typical fermenters with unnaturally shaped right angles at the bottom inhibit the natural circulations that result from the natural biochemical fermentation process. Something like the broad, shallow, squared dimensions of a macrobin would have to be about the least natural choice for the process to occur in.
It might be philosophical nonsense, but in practicality those are often used to select for a very narrow ripeness range. It’s used to push ripeness and make those plush, uber-ripe, culty wines.
This, and outrage over and a complete ban on machine harvesting, is where I have the hardest time understanding the arbitrariness of the line some would draw.
Soil compacting, polluting, clumsy, lowered quality. They necessitate the grower conform training to their use, which can compromise potential quality. One of growers had one of the better rated machine harvesters as an option for some of his sites. He charged less for grapes harvested that we. We tried it with one pick. Lots more MOG and bad grapes to sort out, so extra work on our end. Rupturing of grapes caused some oxidation, and that wine wasn’t as good as normal. Basically, if you’re going to go all natural in the winery, you don’t want to start with the sort of shitty grapes that are asking for extra intervention to minimize the quality loss.