I still love natural wine

L

Levi Dalton

Levi Dalton
Lots of hate disguised as "concern" is floating around the natural wine World these days. The dudes who used to complain the most about undefined, hurt my feelings terminology and Blind Followers were the Points keepers and the Grand Dining hangers on. Now you see that the people who want to be part of the Next Blog Thing are also leaving the Natural behind.

That's cool. I'll see All your faces when it's Cool again. In the meantime, I'll be looking around the Natural world for awhile more. And I'll tell you why: last night, in the same night, I had Petrus '50 (Whoah!), La Mission '70 (very good!), Krug '82 (nice for a '82), and Calek Blonde, also some other stuff, and the one sticking in memory is the Blonde.

Look, it is all nice that certain wines can incite memories of vintages past. You know the excitement of drinking the wines from yesteryear. We all know it. It's a nice feeling. A Rich feeling. But how many wines show you, truly show, and this is a special moment, last year's harvest? That moment, not too long ago, without the trying to be too Grand? How many wines bring vitality and energy and youth and ask only for understanding, not a paycheck, in return?

You may think there are many more examples than I do. Maybe you know of wines that aren't Heavy, that never seem dull. Ok. Good.

Me, I'm happy to have found the one I did.

I'm looking forward to tasting next year's harvest, and in the span of four glasses, feeling vibrant again.
 
On Friday, I watched the last of the Messenger lectures delivered by physicist Richard Feynman at Cornell in, I think, the late 60s. His closing line was "Nature has a great simplicity, and therefore a great beauty."

Chin up, mate.
 
Levi,
At pain of tipping a delicate balance . . .

I really don't understand all this.
Hate? Good heavens, I had no idea.
Hurt feelings? Over wine descriptions?

For me its just this; I want to make/drink wines that give a sense of place and vintage (and if they have a sense of history, so much the better); that have some varietal character or, in its absence, some remarkable quality that makes me forget variety. And I like it if they go with dinner.
Trying to put wine in categories sounds like trying to herd cats.

Every glass is different.
And every reaction to that glass is up to you - or me; yes?
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
Levi,
At pain of tipping a delicate balance . . .

I really don't understand all this.
Hate? Good heavens, I had no idea.
Hurt feelings? Over wine descriptions?

For me its just this; I want to make/drink wines that give a sense of place and vintage (and if they have a sense of history, so much the better); that have some varietal character or, in its absence, some remarkable quality that makes me forget variety. And I like it if they go with dinner.
Trying to put wine in categories sounds like trying to herd cats.

Every glass is different.
And every reaction to that glass is up to you - or me; yes?
Best, Jim
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Jim of the FLA,

I wasn't actually directing any commentary towards what you may or may not have written, and to be real and perfectly honest, I wouldn't drink Natural in the FLA heat either, 'cause sure as anything it would be f*d up. I sure do remember those 110 degree delivery days

And at the end of the day's heat, anything about a glass of wine is up to you and me and everyone else but me. No one is disputing that. Nor is anyone preventing you from choosing what you want by providing more options.

Of course, I wouldn't drink a 1950 Petrus in FLA, either.
 
The initial post seems like a reaction to something, rather than a completely stand-alone sentiment. I could be reading it wrongly but I feel like I have only part of a picture.
 
Sure it was reaction to something. The gist is out there in the ether/rain for anyone to see.

Folks are abandoning Natural Wine quicker than they lined up to talk about how great it was/is. In the past it was popular to show love, now it isn't.

In fact, I'd argue that the people have changed faster than the wines have.

Maybe it was always meant to be a fringe pursuit. That's okay by me, of course. But it is depressing to see folks jump ship on the pretense that their reasoning is based on an argument with terminology. I seem to remember that sort of thing from Junior High, and it seemed false back then, too.
 
Levi,
With respect . . .
I still do not understand.

Are you commenting on what is "popular" and why it should or shouldn't be?
See my previous comment re: cats.

Which "ship" are folks jumping?
What folks?
What ether/rain is there a gist visible in?

'Sorry to be obtuse but . . .
. . . if this is meant to be some stream of consciousness thing, then I apologize for interrupting.
But it seemed as if you wished to be taken seriously.
And, BTW, I did not think you were addressing me personally nor did I take it that way. May you not either.
Best, Jim

PS
FWIW, we have air-conditioning in FL.
Lots of good wine that might spoil in hot weather gets stored/opened in air-conditioned homes.
Like mine.
 
I never was on the 'natural wine' bandwagon, so I'm not jumping ship at all. But some thoughts...

I enjoy 'natural wine' a lot, every time it's made by someone with talent. Like Marcel Lapierre. Or like ric Texier, through whom I've just learned here that M. Lapierre had died. (Even if expected, such news always tugs at the heart strings.) I'm not sure ric uses the tag 'natural' at all, but his wines certainly qualify.

Last week Laureano Serres, one of the leaders of the movement in Spain, brought a quite natural and also quite orange wine to town, and it was terrific: his 2004 garnacha blanca/macabeo. The fact that it was this good after six years was especially exciting for me, because that is uncommon in that field.

Indeed it's the conviction that in some parts of the world, with some types of wines, development in the bottle (the so-called 'ageability') is essential to reach the goals we set for ourselves when we began growing vines and vinifying their juice, that leads some growers such as myself to do the only thing that really separates us from the movement: we use some SO2 to protect and stabilize the wines.

Yet I for one among the philistines appreciate the philosophy which inspires the movement, and I think it has taught us quite a few things - for instance, to progressively reduce the amounts of SO2, which is quite feasible without renouncing its stabilizing and protective effects.

Where we may disagree is in the 'holier than thou', 'we're natural and you're not' attitude which pervades the public statements made by some (not all!) members of the movement. It's a little irritating. But no more than that.
 
I had a pretty great experience recently with a 2004 Els Jelipins. On my first sniff, I thought, "Oh, no, generic hipster wine." But it changed and changed and changed in the glass and proved to be most engaging company. Nothing simple about it.

Renewed my faith.
 
Thanks VS for a balanced statement and thanks Levi for a strong statement.

I abandoned the term Natural Wines because it was starting to become too popular. Not that there is a backlash, I can once again embrace the term with unnatural fervor.
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
Levi,
With respect . . .
I still do not understand.

Are you commenting on what is "popular" and why it should or shouldn't be?
See my previous comment re: cats.

Which "ship" are folks jumping?
What folks?
What ether/rain is there a gist visible in?

'Sorry to be obtuse but . . .
. . . if this is meant to be some stream of consciousness thing, then I apologize for interrupting.
But it seemed as if you wished to be taken seriously.
And, BTW, I did not think you were addressing me personally nor did I take it that way. May you not either.
Best, Jim

PS
FWIW, we have air-conditioning in FL.
Lots of good wine that might spoil in hot weather gets stored/opened in air-conditioned homes.
Like mine.
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Jim, I'm going to go ahead and decline the invitation to point out specific links to you, because I think that they wouldn't be too difficult for you to find on your own, if you did have that inclination.

Regarding wine storage in Florida, what happens before the wine is delivered to your home? Do you have a lot of faith that trucks making deliveries during the summer, often driving several hours from a central warehouse to an outlying account, are nicely refrigerated?

I remember when I lived in Florida I experienced 3 hurricanes in my general area in one summer. As the result of one of those hurricanes, the power went out in my neighborhood for about a week and a half. I suppose if someone had air conditioning it might not work in those circumstances. Of course some people had backup generators. But gasoline was also unavaible for sale at stations during that week and a half, so folks running gas generators would have had to have had their own supply.

One of the things I've noticed working in the restaurant industry, where there is the opportunity to taste a particular wine maybe 100 or so times, is that heat damage can be quite subtle, and that it isn't necessary for corks to be pushed for the changes in flavor to be noticeable.
 
Sticking a natural wine in a lineup of venerables is akin, in my view, to putting a ripe(r) Cal Cab in a line up of just-released claret. It sticks because it sticks out.

There's plenty of wine out there for everyone, and not enough time to get hung up over what other people say or write. I would like to thank Captain Tumour Man for educating me, even if unintentionally.
 
originally posted by Joe Dressner:
Thanks VS for a balanced statement and thanks Levi for a strong statement.

I abandoned the term Natural Wines because it was starting to become too popular. Not that there is a backlash, I can once again embrace the term with unnatural fervor.
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I'm tempted to jump on the bandwagon as well.
 
Bravo Levi!

I have loved so many producers that fall under the natural wine rubric that I can do nothing other than support them. I have also enjoyed any number of wines that do not fall in that category. And I've had some wine fails which a bit more sulphur might have prevented but it's worth it to me because of the excitement of when it works (which for the good producers is most of the time).

Jeff - many wine makers are professing to take the term "natural wine" as a studied insult which claims their wines are unnatural. They go on to claim that no one should be allowed to call their wine "natural" unless the term is codified to mean exactly one thing and nothing else (of course as others point out the term "organic" for food in the US became even more meaningless once such requirements were set). I think they have too much time on their hands.
 
Jeff:

Hear, Here!

VS:

There's a spot waiting for you in the Natural Wines Hall of Fame! You're as belligerent and combative as the rest of us. That's all that really matters!

The Unnatural Wine World is dominated by lame guys who want to make friends, sell wine and please the general public.

The Unnatural Wine World exists to service the Hospitality Industry.

Fuck 'em!
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
Jeff - many wine makers are professing to take the term "natural wine" as a studied insult which claims their wines are unnatural. They go on to claim that no one should be allowed to call their wine "natural" unless the term is codified to mean exactly one thing and nothing else (of course as others point out the term "organic" for food in the US became even more meaningless once such requirements were set).
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Ah, thank you for the explanation, Jay. This is just the sort of thing that I would ignore (not to be rude to said makers but simply because there's nothing substantive to it).

I think they have too much time on their hands.
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Agreed.
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
Jeff - many wine makers are professing to take the term "natural wine" as a studied insult which claims their wines are unnatural. They go on to claim that no one should be allowed to call their wine "natural" unless the term is codified to mean exactly one thing and nothing else (of course as others point out the term "organic" for food in the US became even more meaningless once such requirements were set). I think they have too much time on their hands.
Click to expand...
Well-chosen words. I think you have it exactly right to talk about their "professed" offense, which has never struck me as remotely genuine. Their objection is not really to the language but to the underlying thought process**, and thus in true Orwellian fashion they're feigning offense at the language in order to strike it from our vocabulary and thus deprive us of the ability to talk about and think about the idea it represents.

** Specifically, to the notion that it's possible to draw a line anywhere between the basic manipulation inherent in winemaking and the extreme forms of manipulation that characterize the most ridiculous California pinots (the argument being that you've committed "manipulation" as soon as you've planted a cutting, trained a vine, or picked a grape, and thus if you have any problem with 30 brix, watered-down, reverse-osmosized, oak-flavored jam you are a HYPOCRITE).
 
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