Because the best low sulfites versions are some of the most expressive wines out there. Remember that stupid term probably covers a million different bottles from all around the world (number grabbed out of my ass, but you get the point).
It is like saying why bother with riesling because you had a bottle you didn’t enjoy.
Almost all of my favourite ever white wines have been low sulfites. Half my wine collection is low sulfites wines. Many would be defined as natural wine. But i research and test. It does require some effort, but for me it is worth it as thats the category that brings me the most joy most of the time.
I made that comment slightly in jest to be fair.
But honestly, it just shows that natural wines - as a dogma - sucks. And there are many restaurants around the world where the carrying theme is that they only sell natural wines, and unfortunately many end up being mousetraps.
I am sure there are good ones out there, apparently I’ve had quite a few. But I just wish winemakers would make good wine, not natural wine that happens to turn good.
I vehemently disagree with your suggestion though that you need to be a natural wine to be an expressive wine. I’d say that is a coincidence, not a result of winemaking in that way. You can make good wine, either way. But then again, I don’t really know what “expressive” means. Is DRC not expressive, given that it’s completely destroyed from a naturalist perspective.
Of cause there are amazing wines outside of this category. But sulfites can certainly put a damper on things. It is a balancing act. I never had a DRC, but i am pretty sure they work with bio grapes and low amounts of sulfites these days?
There is just a difference in wines with higher or lower amounts of sulfites. Both Allemand, Lapierre and Balthazar has wines “sans soufre” which shows differently as an example.
There is no clear definition of what natural wine is, so thats an issue in these discussions as well.
DRC used to chaptalize and generally do whatever they wanted with their grapes. I think they have been “natural” only for some very recent vintages. Things that would make a modern-day naturalist go “woooooo”.
The definition of “natural wine” is sort of my thing here. Winemakers can likely avoid 99.9998% of issues by just judicious use of sulfites and other tricks they have, but for some, any sulfites means it is not a “natural wine”.
I’m going back to my previous comment. I wish winemakers would just make the best wine they can, without locking themselves into these categories. I bet the winemaker who made an Otto-51-point wine thought he could only work within a certain framework, and that’s all they could get out of it.
Make good wine, drink that sh*t, and don’t care about the categories. What’s the point or benefit on calling a wine “natural”?
The debate that keeps plodding on with nothing new! But its a quiet Sunday here so…
Otto’s crew somewhat randomly assembled 11 ‘natural’ wines and he found mouse in 3 of them (one only after 1-2 hours) - enough to characterise the entire tasting as a ‘mouse trap’, and a few other posters to then condemn a (badly defined) entire genre of wines.
4 wines scored 90+ but lets ignore those!
I looked up the two (most) offensive wines to see if any sellers I normally trust sell them - and they don’t - though Gourmet Hunters sell Kollektiv Peternell but not the wine you tried.
As an aside, a quick google says DRC are biodynamic since 2008 and haven’t chaptalized since 2001.
IIRC, most if not all these wines were purchased from Gourmet Hunters. That’s definitely one of the go-to places for the people who hunt for natural wines.
And regarding the natural larger wine debate, I think the biggest beef here is the zero-sulfite dogma. With wines that have zero added SO2 the wines can be quite a gamble - for example Ganevat whites are some of the greatest I know, whereas some others can be undrinkable like these Peternell and Serragghia wines we had here. And I’ve understood that at least the Serragghia wines can be very impressive when they are in good shape. However, as it is such a minefield, I really don’t like to dabble with these wines anymore.
Things change wildly if the producer uses just something like 10-20 mg/l of SO2. Usually the addition is so small that in many cases the wine can still come across as “natural” in style, but it is often enough to keep bad things like mousiness and excessive levels of VA at bay, if used at right times with sound winemaking practices. I myself am for natural wines, not against, but based on a sample size of thousands of bottles, I personally prefer wines that see a minimal dose of sulfites, as opposed to complete avoidance of SO2.
And I guess it goes without saying that no amount of sulfites is going to help against bad winemaking practices, no matter if they are natural or not.
Use of sulphur is about the 50th thing we consider when taking wine for our shop, but I don’t actually remember any producer telling me they have a mandatory zero approach to addition in any circumstances. A couple for sure prefer zero addition but have a high tech approach of leaving a glass out overnight before bottling and seeing how it is.
You know what. At the end of the day we mostly agree. There is also a lot of winemakers that makes low sulfites wimes with respect for the nature, that don’t call the wines natural wine themself, but people put them into that categroy.
And that is my issue. There are some people who like to put things in boxes and make over generalisations.
Otto and Russell makes some good points and this could go on for ever hehe, so i will stop here. At the end of the day we just want good wine to drink, on that we can always agree
It’s that SO2 mutes aromatics (and darkens the character of wines and adds structure). We made a bunch of side by side wines at Harrington, with the no sulphite version under the Terrane label. That was using a compound extracted from grape seeds to do the antimicrobial and anti-oxidative role of SO2. That was a quest for the Holy Grail and a pursuit of quality. Our wines were minimal intervention in practice, with no interest in the natural wine dogma or stigma. Much effort to not make any flawed wines.
It’s pretty standard these days for artisan wineries to use as little SO2 as the feel safe with in order to maximize quality.
Agreed-- my 2018 and 2019 vintages were made with no sulfites added. But I have moved to low/modest additions during assemblage/before bottling due to some quality issues with the 2019 vintage.
We can keep things pretty stable during harvest/fermentations (have a pied de cuve ready for a quick ferm. start) and in barrel with a 55F cellar, but after that it can be a bit of a gamble. My 2018s are still great, showing very well, but my 2019s were mixed. Two bottlings were great (Marie-Paule, sold out), one shows a bit of Brett., but not too bad and it shows well on the palate (vs the nose) (Colette), and the third is a bit too much for most people (Ariane). In a nutshell, it was very difficult to compare the 2019s with each other, and to find the Vineyard/Terroir in all three due to the microbiological offnotes on two of the three wines.
As a side note, I did start off believing that sulfites could mute color, flavors and aromatics but have found that once the sulfites bind with acetylaldehyde and other compounds (this does not take very long-- a few months, max., especially for low additions), there is no/very little flavor or aromatic loss. On the flip side, even my clean no-sulfite Pinots can come across as a bit aldehydic to some.
Color loss does seem real in my trials and therefore I don’t sulfite at harvest/during fermentation especially because I am working with Pinot Noir in a (mostly) cool climate.
Thanks for sharing Wes and David. Super interesting to hear from winemakers who have actually been through the process and experimented with low amounts of sulfites.
Quite a few of the wines i buy now a day have around 10-20 mg/l added when bottled it seems. In most of those wines there have been no issues and i did still feel that they were aromatically what i search for.
Thank you for the detailed notes and commentary Otto. Always charming to find both interest and laugh-out-loud moments in your postings.
I didn’t see anything here that made me start hunting for with Wine Searcher. Overall reinforces my view that ‘natural wine’ as a category isn’t important or all that useful. Good old fashioned producer, producer, producer followed by varietal/region/vintage/vineyard in some combination is more useful.
Wasenhaus which are discussed a lot in the German Spätburgunder thread is a top class example for me. Wines that are not faulty or overly wild. But very aromatic and just overall great wines.
Overall there seem to be quite a few from the new German generation that works with lower amounts of sulfites with success.
But to mention a few others I like: Domaine des Marnes Blanches and Les Dolomies from Jura. Domaines that will add if they feel it is needed. My new hero Francois Dumas makes low sulfites wines and one of the best Saint-Joseph out there. Jessica Litaud and Domaine de la Cras (the Coteaux can be sans soufre i think and had one faulty example) in Burgundy. The Cras 2019 Monopole is a great example for this type of wine. Envinates top wines can be damn good. La Porte Saint Jean in Saumur-Champigny. I actually think Franck Balthazar works with low amounts of sulfites in all his wines these days, not sure about the exact amount though. Pattes Loup in Chablis. Most top names in Beaujolais?
Color loss in a red wine is very noticeable when we add SO2 in the tank for assemblage and start racking a wine— for example— because at first the SO2 concentration is so high. I’m not an organic chemist so I cracked open my wine chemistry book— there is a section titled “bisulfite bleaching” related to red pigments (anthocyanins) that is very technical but it does have this sentence that I understand “…the resulting loss of red color is referred to as “bleaching””…
SO2 also stops/reduces oxidative and enzymatic browning processes (quinones and such) which is why white wines tend to have more sulfites added than red wines (for appearance); and why we get browning in older bottles (red and white) as SO2 is bound and no longer active. So that’s a different color loss issue that on the flip side, SO2 helps with.
(The SO2 effects on flavor involve different reactions, mostly aldehydic ones such as diacetyl (butter type flavors) and others— think of sherry/vin jaune type flavors in oxidized styles of wine.)
Thank you David. Maybe I didn’t express my question as clearly as I could have. And I’m sorry I made you go to all that trouble for my lack of clarity.
My question was not meant to be if or why SO2 causes bleaching. I presumed you were correct about that.
My question was more to the point of why losing color was a concern for you in making wines if you have otherwise found no loss in flavor or aromatics?
To clarify, my comment about muting flavor is about perception, not chemical change. So, the issue can diminish or disappear with bottle age or aeration.
Oh I get it now-- Oregon Pinots can be light in color and light in other phenolics especially for vintages with “typical” historic cool weather with fewer sunny days. This is becoming less of an issue as our continues to change.
I guess it’s a personal preference for me to have better color (and I must admit, it’s something I noticed working at the Lumos (Temperance Hill Winery) tasting room for 4 years-- clients seem to prefer deeper color subconsciously-- it connotes deeper flavor perhaps?).
I am also willing to risk extended hang times for better color, flavor and more tannins. My pick dates for most of the 2021s was Sept 30, which was fully a week or two later than my colleagues. ABVs turned out fine with 12.9% (whole cluster) and 13.5% (destemmed) on average for all six blocks/clones (the blended Marie-Paule flagship and reserve are both 13.2%). In 2021 at our collective winery space (10 to 12 wineries), only Bjornson had a later pick; and in 2022 I was absolutely the last one in The 2022s also show low ABVs and in my opinion, better flavors (3 blocks under 13%, one at 13% and two at/above 13.5%, with one highest at 13.8%)
Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever bought or judged a wine based on color. But, if I had to pick a wine purely on color, I think I’d pick the lighter colored wine, unless the wine is a rosé or if its a red and the lightness is clearly due to bricking (but I still might pick that depending on the context and options).
How do people (including other winemakers in the winery space) usually react to your choice to pick late and its effect on the wines?
Side note: I like Lumos a lot. I’ve said several times here that they don’t get the mentions or love they should. I’ve never done a side-by-side of any Lumos wines to see any color differences but I did note a “shimmering ruby color” in my note on their 2017 Temperance Hill blend. Beautiful wine really. I should get their 2021s when they come out.
But its a quiet Sunday here so…
“…the resulting loss of red color is referred to as “bleaching””…