This is where I have to disagree. The same with names like Foillard and Lapierre. Those wines are natural wines no matter the audience.
“Natural wine” these days is about winemaking approch and not so much style. It comes in so many styles these days. It is the various styles that are sold to certain audiences (for many different reasons).
I don’t think it is fair to move the goalpost on a wine based on trends and audiences. Either it is made in a certain way or its not.
We cannot start moving the goalpost on that just because something becomes established over time.
For the record, I agree with you completely. However I haven’t found it very productive to try and change others’ minds on this point. In my opinion it’s best to observe the difference in understanding and move on from there. It’s also why I think the conversation in ways is ends up being more about types of people and not about types of wine.
It is certainly interesting how it is evolving with the different takes on it. I also think, if you went back 10-20 years, then the take on added sulfites would be different in many people’s view.
We have a rather long history with “natural wine” here in Copenhagen. While it is still a huge thing, I think the lines are much more relaxed now than a decade ago when wine became an interest for me. More places will have a mix of “natural” and “classic” wines than previously. Hopefully the discussions will move in the same direction with time.
Personally, at the core of it, I like a focus on limited chemicals when it comes to farming and shorter lists of additives in any product I consume. From that point on I just want wine I like to drink.
Love the give and take in this thread - and as long as folks don’t get too dogmatic, we’re fine . . .
There is no doubt that a new generation of wine drinkers are embracing these wines - and most likely for various reasons. Younger folks seem to be drawn to these more so than any other age group, and folks at all wine knowledge levels, though it seems that a good majority might be newer wine consumers.
I think some are drawn to these wines because of the ‘story’ - how they are made with less inputs, in a more ‘natural’ way, etc.
That said, the marketing and ‘implications’ I have real issues with - these wines are oftentimes thought of as being more representative of the terroir of the site . . . it’s possible, but not if the wine is flawed; commercial yeasts are oftentimes ‘demonized’ as being ‘industrial’ and ‘genetically modified’ - um, nope, that’s just false. And less inputs is great - except when perhaps an input or two would have prevented high VA, mousiness or brett . . .
I want more people drinking wine and therefore applaud all efforts to get more folks to do so. But please don’t be dogmatic about it.
A lot of high end Burgundy fits that criteria, as I’ve said. So would some high end Bordeaux. But natural wine enthusiasts don’t think of those wines as natural or call them natural wine, and one of the (many) reasons is that those producers don’t want them to be called natural wine. But another is that they’re not cool and don’t fit; imagine trying to order a glass of Cheval Blanc at 10 Bells or a bottle of Dujac at Vivant 2. You glibly responded that you don’t own any DRC, so don’t know how it’s made. I don’t own any DRC either, but I’m quite prepared to engage with wines on their own merits, whether “natural” or not. If you are not aware of how high end Burgundy is made, perhaps you should look into the matter before suggesting the issue is “just about winemaking”. When I started visiting Burgundy on a regular basis I was struck how similar the winemaking at so many high end Domaines was to some of the more natural producers I’d visited or spoken to.
But this is all beside the point - we don’t need to figure out the technical definition of “natural wine” on this thread, because it’s not relevant. Many people have their definition, and like Kipling said, there are sixty and nine ways of making tribal lays and all of them are right. (The only rule of wine is that people should drink what they like.) If you want to argue with people as to what makes wine natural, that’s great, but to me what’s important is the wine in the glass.* But this thread was started specifically to discuss the wine industry, and for these purposes, “natural wine”, both in terms of bars and stores, is not about the winemaking - it’s about the aesthetic and the self selection. You should read the article, which makes this distinction quite clear, and is consistent with my experience over many years. You keep talking down to me as if I haven’t engaged with natural wine, but I have, over many, many years. I’ve been to a reasonable number of natural wine fairs (including RAW, and I don’t think the wines are as bad as some others here), I’ve drunk a lot of the natural producers mentioned here, visited some of them, talked to them about sulfur - it’s interesting!
And yes, it’s a specific and self selecting niche, and it has grown moreso over the past decade as it has become a category of wine**. Consider Pacalet - the wines are consistently present on so many natural wine bar/restaurant lists, and yet his winemaking isn’t meaningfully different than that of many top Burgundy producers. But he leans into the designation, while they actively lean away from it. How is his winemaking significantly different than, say, Jean-Marie Fourrier? (I had a very amiable discussion about this with Alice Feiring.) That DRC is natural wine isn’t actually a joke - they’re organic, low intervention wines (and use horses to plow the vines). I don’t own any DRC either, but I don’t brag about being ignorant of the winemaking. I don’t own any Foillard either, but I also know how it’s made.
An even more stark (no pun intended) example would be Roederer and Collin. Both are brilliant producers, but one is considered acceptable from a natural wine perspective (it is on some of the most obscure natural wine lists imaginable in NYC) while it would be crazy to imagine Cristal being served at those restaurants. And yet, Cristal is 100% grower champagne that is made biodynamically - if you haven’t heard Jean-Baptiste Lecallion talk about the challenges of converting Roederer to biodynamics and his passion for the project, I can’t recommend it highly enough. But that’s not how Cristal positions itself and it’s not how people who drink natural wine see it, and so it’s not on any natural wine list in Paris or NYC. You might respond that what really matters is how Cristal is made***, and I would refer you to the discussion above. The point is not whether you, Lasse, think of Cristal as natural wine - that’s an argument you are welcome to have with people who care about the natural wine designation from a winemaking perspective (I don’t care, I just think it’s a great wine). For purposes of this discussion, the question is whether it falls into the “natural wine” category, and the easiest way to determine the answer is whether it is served in the many popular (and fun!) natural wine bars in NYC, Paris, London, Barcelona and Tokyo.
*FWIW, I find the arguments over what natural wine actually is thoroughly boring, because what matters is the wine in the glass not how to designate it. I leave it to the adherents of natural wine to argue what the proper level of sulfur is, it’s just not important to me. These arguments are like intra-Marxist debates - vicious, irrelevant and often in service of inferior products. As Anselme Selosse has said, the making of wine is an inherently unnatural process anyway.
**Natural wine bars have very similar lists, serve wine in consistently similar (poor) stems and, as some natural wine writers have even noticed recently, even dress the same It is its own subculture (just like Burgundy drinkers, fwiw.)
***I would also note, “my definition of natural wine is…” is not actually helpful to this discussion, because every person has their own definition. And if every person that drinks natural wine gets to define natural wine, there can never be a meaningful definition.
I think that’s fair, though I don’t use these discussions to bash natural wine. The label “natural wine” is an aesthetic (also why just about natural wine bar has the same crappy stems and most natural wine producers have “cool labels”); once you move beyond that, the question of labeling a wine “natural” or not is mostly moot for me. Like Lasse’s contention that Lapierre is “always natural wine”. That only matters to the extent you want to define winemaking, but to me, the question is whether it tastes good or not. Whether it falls within the general natural wine category depends on whether the right somms are pouring it in the right bars, I suppose
Well, it also depends on whether Allemand wants to be considered a natural winemaker, which he doesn’t. It’s like Pacalet and Fourrier. (And I don’t at all dislike Pacalet’s wines.)
I think there is quite a bit of bad wine at the more extreme edge of the natural wine spectrum (moar sulfr pleeze), but there’s plenty of good wine that leans natural - I’m far from a blanket critic of the genre. My issue is more with the consistency; it’s hard for me to be a consumer of it as a product when I don’t know what I’m going to get. But I’d say the same thing about paying premium prices for white Burgundy under regular cork.
About the first bit - I might be getting off the rails here but is it the artist who gives ultimate definition for their output or the one consuming the art? It’s probably not so obliquely black and white. But I understand the point given the earlier comments about what social circles certain wines are tied to.
I think the consistency is exactly the aspect I find most unappealing - it’s a special disappointment to be excited for a bottle and have it be faulty. It happens to the best of producers. What you’re talking about specifically then is the higher than average rate of faults for the average natural wine. As a proponent of the general ideals of natural wine (but not always the wine), it can be a disheartening thing.
This is certainly a challenge these days. I have a feeling that many people getting into these types of wines don’t mind the uncertainty. They don’t know what to expect.
So it’s a thing that drives some wine consumers crazy that others seem to applaud.
As to the first point, I understand the distinction, but it’s a matter of conscious self selection; producers who lean into the natural label do so intentionally. Some of the newer wave Burgundy producers have cool hip labels, some don’t. Some are seen as fellow travelers to the natural wine movement, some are not. The gallery at which the artist displays his work is going to influence how it’s perceived
Yeah, the failure rate is problematic, but it’s somewhat inherent to the product, I think. However, it’s probable that without the grounding in more traditional wine a lot of the consumers who only drink natural wine simply don’t know what those flaws are. We all train our palates - if you’ve not had the training on what wine “should” taste like, how would you know? You just assume that’s what wine is. And in my experience a lot of people who drink natural wine only drink natural wine. (This is not a universal statement.) Which is consistent with natural wine bars only serving natural wine, and some natural wine fans explaining away flaws.
This. Dear lords it irks me whenever I pour a wine blind and when the bottle is revealed and I tell people it is a natural wine, they outright disagree with me because “it doesn’t smell or look like a natural wine” or “it doesn’t taste natty!”
For chrissakes. There are natural wines that are funky, cloudy, volatile, mousy, you name it. Then there are natural wines you’d never tell them apart from conventionally made wines from the same region. Even within the “zero-zero” genre Lasse mentioned earlier (Foradori reds or Ganevat’s domaine whites, anyone?).
And I think William Kelley has several times clarified on this board that DRC is definitely not a natural nor even a low-interventionist producer. IIRC, before this recent streak of very warm years, they used to chaptalize their wines in most vintages - something a low-interventionist would never do.
FWIW, I think if you can get into RAW, you’re a naturalist. That makes producers like Allemand and Gonon natural wine producers, whether you like it or not.
I’d never imagine going to buy pricey Burgundy if I didn’t know Jack Sheet about the region. For me, Burgundy is probably a minefield even worse than natural wines.
All this bashing of poor natural wine fans… And on the opposite end of the spectrum we have people seemingly stuck in an endless loop drinking same 5 wines over and over again and splitting hair over minute differences between vintages and provenience. Who is here more “into wine”? I say more power to all of them.
It’s fun to make claims like that, but it’s just not true. Because a few of my friends drink a lot of natural leaning Burgundy I do as well, and it is a lot more inconsistent than Burgundy generally. And natural leaning Burgundy is more on the higher end than natural wine generally. Poor QPR is different than issues with absolute quality.
If you want to make the argument that natural wine is, in large part, a reaction to the high cost of some of the higher end traditional wines, then sure, I agree. Some people who are into natural wine would quite like to drink high end conventional wines. But that’s a different argument.
So, since it hasn’t been chaptalized for a decade, isn’t it now “natural whether you like it or not”? The real distinction you’re drawing is the producer’s stated philosophy, not the actual wines. Which is why it’s aesthetic. And, of course, let’s not get into the question of how honest a lot of the producers are with the commitment to no intervention when it comes to losing a year’s worth of production. The stories one hears! But, I digress.
I respond in the way I am written to. It was you who flat out told me I was wrong on definitions. Low intervention and natural wine, terms famous for not having an universal accepted description.
That was extremely condescending, so don’t expect me to reply with any respect.
Overall, I don’t think we will ever agree. So lets just stop it here. We both made our perspectives on what “natural wine” is here.
Natural wine is no different than any other type of wine when it comes to one’s taste and knowledge evolving over their journey. I don’t know a single person who is hard core into natural wine (and I know 100s around the globe) who like wines with flaws. I of course see many who are just starting to explore wine happily drinking fucked up wines. It is no different than many who start drinking riper, higher abv wines who eventually settle on more refined wines.
Of course it is! If natural wine is inconsistent and Burgundy is inconsistent, natural Burgundy is something like inconsistent²! I really don’t understand how this pertains to the point, however.
No, I don’t, thank you very much for asking. Why would I want to make such a claim?
Please elaborate, I really can’t see your point here.
Now you lost me completely. What are you trying to say here?
One of the reasons the “natural wine conversation” is convoluted and somewhat circular is because, as other have pointed out, the definition really does matter.
Most people don’t know how they would define it and those that do disagree with each other.
It brings to mind this image for me (have posted the book with an appropriately ironic wine bottle pairing - it’s an excellent book btw):
Once past the definitions, I think there are still plenty of very interesting conversations to be had.
For example, someone above noted that natural wines are often acidic. Someone else that they taste the same. I’ve encountered that not infrequently.
Why is that?
I have a theory that bc the “natural” wine maker has fewer tools to access, many pick earlier to preserve acidity, but often at the cost of flavor complexity (which comes with ripening).
What is missing from this conversation but what was highlighted in Asimov’s piece is the fun, joy, and accessibility that natural wine represents to young people. As an elder millennial woman who grew an appreciation of fine wine largely due to finding really enjoyable natural and/or low intervention wines in Brooklyn, there is something to be said for the presentation of wine in unfussy environments that will inspire consumption and even fascination with wanting to learn more.
It is its own subculture (just like Burgundy drinkers, fwiw.)
I really don’t understand how this pertains to the point, however.
