Michael, Vicky & I went to the Bottle Apostle Natural Wines evening on the 14th of September. The redoubtable Tom introduced us to the very broad concept of "natural wines" and what that term seems to cover in the industry; aspects of organic, low- or non-interventionist practices, biodynamic and sutainable viticulture.
Organic wine really only refers to the growing of the grapes and what is going on before the grapes get into the winery itself - but organic certification differs so widely across different wine-producing countries, that there are lot of very grey areas and it is difficult to know what is and isn't allowed for a wine to achieve that "organic" status.
Natural wine, then, is a much broader term, which has no legal meaning or certification - but is used to get a handle on what takes place in the winery. A "natural" wine might be made with a minimum chemical or technological intervention; with low irrigation or low water; with a minimal of additives such as sugars, acidity adjusters, foreign yeasts, bacteria, or additives for colour, texture or minerality; minimal fining (use of coagulants such as egg whites or fish scales to remove haze from the wine) or filtering; no forced oxygenation; minimal or no added sulphur. The key here is that so-called "natural" wine production is going to differ vastly from vineyard ot vineyard - so read up on the wine or producer and their statement of beliefs and processes. Another key thing I took away is that caveats abound - "we make minimal use of....."; "with the minimum of..." gives producers a lot of leeway to say that though they aspire towards organic or natural practices, if something goes a bit wrong, they'll probably resort to tried and tested interventionist methods rather than risk costly problems with their wine. That assumes, though, that we're talking a decent-sized producer with ample resources who has made a conscious decision to go down the "natural" route. Some smaller producers, are almost "natural" by default; such as the tiny productions of Luke Lambert in Yarra Valley, Australia, who makes wine in his garden shed, and for whom non-interventionism is a factor of minimal production costs and lack of industrial facilities.
The DaisySteiner approach....
The other areas Tom touched on were "sustainable" practices such green, wild-life friendly approachs - which I think most people are familiar with these days (certainly anyone who listens to The Archers....); and "biodynamic" wines. A biodynamic approach, among other things, uses prescribed calendars (such as phases of the moon) determining when to do certain things in the wine-making process. Some producers are timing tastings with the "fruit day" of a particular grape. There also seems to be a lot of burying things in other things and then digging them up later; bury take an animal's scull/intestine/hoof/bladder/rectal canal [delete as appropriate], and stuff it full of stinging nettles/faeces/barley/low-fat cream-cheese [as above], bury it, leave it a year, and then dig it up and add the contents of the scull to the soil. At lot of this stems from the synthesis between science and mysticism that Daisy Rudoph Steiner devoted a lot of time to studying.
The wines themselves were.... a mixed bag. My biggest takeway from the night is that some of the natural wines are REALLY stinky. I mean, REALLY. One of the wines we tried was Vin de Table Blanc "Valacabrieres" de Fantine NV Carole, Olivier & Corine Andrieu (13%: Terret: Languedoc) which uses no added sulphur in the production process. From the look of it, it may as well have been decanted into a specimen bottle as a caraffe - thick, cloudy and piss-coloured. And it stank of manure. Taste-wise, it was more like a cidre-deux than a wine - but interestingly after we'd been off and tasted some other wines, I was curious to try this one again and after about 30-40 minutes breathing time, the wine smelt more like stewed apples, and the taste was much more winey, still with a strong sweet appley taste but a hint of melons.
My favourite wine of the evening was Collioure "Folio" 2009 Coume del Mas (14%: Grenache Blanc: Roussillon) which was from a a non-mechanized producer where everything is done by hand or horse, which was a fantastic, intense white (though I didn't write down any probably tasting notes for this one, other than a big smiley face and a "Yum" to remind me to buy a bottle!).
Second favourite was Luke Lambert's Syrah 2009 Yarra Valley (13.5%: Australia) - as mentioned above, Lambert produces the wine in his back garden shed - the wine still had the hint of that stinkey manure smell which permeated 4 or 5 of the natural wines we tried, but was much more spicey and rich in its bouquet and was a gorgeous, rich, sweet wine. He produces so little that his wines always sell out - but at £41 a bottle, I'm sure I could find an equally interesting and tasty non-natural wine at a much better price.
The final wine of real note was the Brunello di Montalcino 2004 Il Paradiso di Manfredi (13.5%: Sangiovese: Tuscany). At a whopping £66 a bottle it was by far the most expensive of the "naturals" (they averaged about £20 a bottle), and is a biodynamically produced wine, fermented in concrete vats with no foreign yeast. It had a stinky (again) nose mixed with tobacco, and a dark fruit, dry, earthy, leathery taste which was very pleasant.
My conclusion: a little intervention goes a long way (and is probably no bad thing!).
No comments:
Post a Comment