Eric Texier on Natural(?) Wine

sustainability is rarely a subject of discussion. SO2, carbonic maceration, filtration, amphoras, Jules Chauvet, even Che Guevara are much more fashionable than fossil fuel consumption or carbon footprint in the present natural wine discussion
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That's some good shit right there.
 
Great article by Eric. His comments about sustainability remind me of the comments of Michael Pollan in Omnivore's Dilemma in which he discusses the mutation of the term "organic" from Rodale's original description of a return to traditional agricultural practices to a present-day definition of "no pesticides, no fertilizer," a very limited subset of the original meaning.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Thor:
sustainability is rarely a subject of discussion. SO2, carbonic maceration, filtration, amphoras, Jules Chauvet, even Che Guevara are much more fashionable than fossil fuel consumption or carbon footprint in the present natural wine discussion
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That's some good shit right there.
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I was surprised he was talking about other wine makers, and not merely the blogosphere.
 
I do worry that -- and this isn't just about Eric's excellent and thought-provoking post, though it's an exemplar of it -- there's some "making the perfect the enemy of the good" fetishism going on. Which is fine if people want to head down that path, though I think there are other meanings of "unsustainable" that then apply. But I think I'll save the flesh on that point for a different venue.

Thanks much for the series, by the way, and also for the opportunity to contribute a barrage of pedantry.
 
I really value Eric's insights and definitely think he brings up important issues, but I also hope the discussion about fossil fuels doesn't go too far down the path into "locavore"-territory. If that became the ideal, it would be a pretty depressing time to be a New Yorker. Certainly it would be better for the environment if wines were only taken on a horse-drawn carriage to the nearby market where they were sold or traded for other local goods, but does anyone want that to happen? Once we start bragging about how low-impact our lifestyles are (in the comment section, not in Eric's post), how far should it be expected to go?

Also, thanks to Cory for hosting 32 days. Whatever else might be said about the quality of all the entries this year, I don't know where else on the internet one could read as interesting of a piece from a figure like Eric, so thanks.
 
It was my pleasure. The only I thought was missing (besides more winemakers, of course) was people doing single bottles of wine they were excited about.
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
It was my pleasure. The only I thought was missing (besides more winemakers, of course) was people doing single bottles of wine they were excited about.
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Oh, it's way beyond that now. We must all take a stance.
 
Wow. As a grower, ric's thoughts prod me to think and revise some of our practices. He's doing us a big and unusual favor in this time of endlessly repeated mantras.

BTW - we're fighting, right now, an outbreak of oidium (bad year for oidium and mildew in our part of the world), and since we're only using the organically acceptable wettable sulfur, the efficiency is possibly not the greatest. (Not that there are many efficient treatments, except very hot dry weather, for oidium once it sets in.) Following ric's line of thought, perhaps with organic treatments we do make more trips to the vineyard and burn more fuel... But then, what's the alternative? Donkeys? Aggressive synthetic treatments?

This is quite a quandary.
 
originally posted by John Ritchie:
I really value Eric's insights and definitely think he brings up important issues, but I also hope the discussion about fossil fuels doesn't go too far down the path into "locavore"-territory.
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The discussion is already there, John.
There a number of reasons why people would want to make natural wine: the belief that it makes for better tasting wines, environmental concerns, food safety concerns, etc.
Eric's piece, spending a good bit of time dwelling on carbon footprints, is at least in part discussing environmental concerns. And not just the vyd environment.
Why should a discussion of the distribution of wines, a very large percentage of the carbon footprint contained within a bottle of wine, get a pass?
 
Eric drove a Mack truck through my presumption that natural wines had lower carbon footprints than regular. But the truth is that I am drawn to natural wines more for the esthetics than the ethics. The romantic ideals of purity and honesty. Would I drink them as a matter of principle if they tasted worse? I think not. I rent cars, take taxis, ride on airplanes, eat red meat and wear leather. Does that make me a hypocrite? Are natural winemakers who drive cars and take trains and board planes to come to the US to market their wines hypocrites? Are their holier-than-thou importers who write eloquent books and manifestos hypocrites also? Are we all hypocrites on Ego Disorder? Each of us has to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and I'm not sure that being judgmental about where others draw theirs is the way to go, even if it's fun to set up a soapbox in a sandbox (I'm talking about bloody amateurs; Eric has earned the right to rage against the machine).

Mechanized plowing would be OK if the tractors were electric and the energy came from hydroelectric or eolic sources. So, unless we are willing to reform our entire lifestyles, we should do more to fight oil-based energy and its hideous spills instead of parsing the carbon footprints of our natural wines.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa: I rent cars, take taxis, ride on airplanes, eat red meat and wear leather... So, unless we are willing to reform our entire lifestyles...
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You can reform your lifestyle and reduce energy consumption without walking everywhere and knitting your own clothes.

We're always going to consume some energy so it's not like every consumption is necessarily evil. It's more about the overall picture, what is waste/excessive, etc.
 
It's more about the overall picture, what is waste/excessive, etc.
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Maybe we should start with shipping heavy glass bottles all over the world by trains, planes, ships, and autombiles.

Not to light a match...
 
not to mention NYC is just a perfect place for natural wine storage, atm

oh, and I just love parsing the sentence above in two different ways, I amuse myself.
 
I commend Mr. Texier for his words, as his wines, are worth paying attention to. He is always looking to pull the soap out the soap box and throw water on out ivory (soap) towers. Looking at your own lifestyle and believing that purchasing, drinking, evangelizing, "natural" wines is giving you some type of carbon offset brownie points is an exercise in mental masturbation. If you are really interested in reducing your carbon footprint, then look locally. Reducing your personnel energy consumption a couple of percent is going to have a much bigger impact than the purchase of "natural" wine and or any other "natural" product.

I could care less about "natural" wine having a smaller carbon footprint. I drink it for only one selfish reason - the taste.

NB
A personally think I am preaching to choir on this point, but there are others.....
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Meine dois centimesEric drove a Mack truck through my presumption that natural wines had lower carbon footprints than regular. But the truth is that I am drawn to natural wines more for the esthetics than the ethics. The romantic ideals of purity and honesty. Would I drink them as a matter of principle if they tasted worse? I think not. I rent cars, take taxis, ride on airplanes, eat red meat and wear leather. Does that make me a hypocrite? Are natural winemakers who drive cars and take trains and board planes to come to the US to market their wines hypocrites? Are their holier-than-thou importers who write eloquent books and manifestos hypocrites also? Are we all hypocrites on Ego Disorder? Each of us has to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and I'm not sure that being judgmental about where others draw theirs is the way to go, even if it's fun to set up a soapbox in a sandbox (I'm talking about bloody amateurs; Eric has earned the right to rage against the machine).

Mechanized plowing would be OK if the tractors were electric and the energy came from hydroelectric or eolic sources. So, unless we are willing to reform our entire lifestyles, we should do more to fight oil-based energy and its hideous spills instead of parsing the carbon footprints of our natural wines.
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Well said. I was going to say something along the lines of, I guess the Venn diagram of people who favor traditional winemaking and people who give a shit about their so-called "carbon footprints" have a substantial overlap, but I'm exclusively in the former camp, non-overlapping.
 
Cory, I wish I had written about a specific bottle of natural wine that inspired me. Maybe next time if you'll have me.

Match lit, Thor. I'll make the point again that natural wine should be about local wine. Fuck New York.

VS, that quandry leaves me focusing on the intention of the pursuit. You can't simply be natural, but you can work to achieve it, even if you learn that certain things you're doing in the name of being natural (organics) might end up hurting the cause (more passes with the tractor).
 
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