I still love natural wine

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originally posted by Brzme:
originally posted by VS:
Good questions all. You can add traditional Rioja, such as LdH, for which treatment in the cellar and aging techniques are crucial, way above terroir considerations.
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Vin Jaune wouldn't taste like it tastes without the specific cellar treatment. Therefore I see the traditional cellar techniques that allow the expression of nuances between producers and parcels as part of the terroir, in its french acceptance, which is not only the soil and the climate, but also specific history and culture concerning an agricultural product.

And when a rioja beging to taste like any international spoofed wine or like any carbonic natural soup then terroir is gone. Definitely not with the same intention but gone anyway.
Since I don't drink philosophical intentions, either way to hide/kill the terroir won't find any support from me as a drinker or a winemaker.

After all maybe I am too old school, even ractionnaire. Like a lovely young women said to me not long ago when arguing about one of these terrible bretty over-alcoholic generic vin de table from anywhere but sooooo natural with a cartoon label :
"Terroir is such a petit bourgeois notion"!!!!

Wine revolution really doesn't need it anymore.
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Wierdly, given the context, this seems like the political statement.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
What cellar treatments and aging techniques do you think are responsible for Bosconia and Tondonia tasting so different from each other?
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Until quite recently (and I mean after 2000), and for all of the 20th century, Bosconia and Tondonia were simply barrel selections made in the cellar from the same vineyard, the huge Via Tondonia (240 acres about the size of 160 football fields) planted by Rafael Lpez de Heredia around 1915. To begin with, the specific terroir character imparted by such a huge, geologically diverse vineyard (actually, what the winery calls an 'amalgamation' of several vineyards in the same area) remains debatable this is twice the size of Clos de Vougeot, and you know what everyone thinks about the concept of a single Vougeot terroir. In recent years, LdH informs that Bosconia now comes exclusively from the nearby Via del Bosque vineyard. But this one is less than one-sixth the size of Tondonia (15 ha 36 acres), which seems like quite a discrepancy.

The difference in style between the two top wines at LdH (in their Reserva and Gran Reserva versions), during all these years, came essentially from varietal makeup and cellar treatment. With more grenache in the blend and less maceration in vat, Tondonia was paler, more delicate and also more accessible when (relatively) young. With more tempranillo, always selected for concentration and power, and more skin contact Bosconia was darker, more structured, took longer to come around and usually aged better. Then again, the nine long years in used American oak barrels (for the Gran Reserva), with 18 rackings exactly, were and are as much part of the wines' personality as the provenance of the grapes and their vinification.
 
If you regard traditional cellar practices as part of terroir, then you have to add viticultural practices and everything else humans do, and the entire concept of "terroir" is going to fall apart. Why overstuff the term? Why not just call those things "tradition" and say that both terroir and tradition are important in wine.
 
originally posted by Brzme:
originally posted by VS:
Good questions all. You can add traditional Rioja, such as LdH, for which treatment in the cellar and aging techniques are crucial, way above terroir considerations.
Click to expand...

Since I don't drink philosophical intentions, either way to hide/kill the terroir won't find any support from me as a drinker or a winemaker.

After all maybe I am too old school, even ractionnaire. Like a lovely young women said to me not long ago when arguing about one of these terrible bretty over-alcoholic generic vin de table from anywhere but sooooo natural with a cartoon label :
"Terroir is such a petit bourgeois notion"!!!!

Wine revolution really doesn't need it anymore.
Click to expand...

Shazam.

I more or less agree. But that isn't much of a surprise.
 
Just a note: a belief that any ol' winemaking practice, just because it's "traditional", is good and salutary and not at all akin to spoofing, should IMHO be tempered by some reflection on the many horrors (and downright unsanitary actions) that have passed as "traditional practices" in many places of our world over the years. Let's don't ignore the realities, not all of them nice and wholesome, of winemaking history.
 
If you regard traditional cellar practices as part of terroir, then you have to add viticultural practices and everything else humans do, and the entire concept of "terroir" is going to fall apart. Why overstuff the term? Why not just call those things "tradition" and say that both terroir and tradition are important in wine.
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Absolutely. It's tradition. It may even be typicity (though in the specific case of LdH, it's not a regional one...at least not anymore). But it's not terroir.

I do think that there's a French mode of argumentation that the two can't be so easily separated, and that's based on a slightly different understanding of the word (it's theirs, after all) than the more rigorous, functionalist one you and I are using. I respect the tradition (and typicity) of the word's use in that manner, but find the separation of the concepts much more useful in terms of discussing what each brings to the wine, and find the catch-all nature of the cultural/historical version frustratingly vague. Maybe a little like "natural" in that regard...

There's a long essay somewhere on my blog that says the above in several thousand times the number of words.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
Political statementsI just want to say for the record that I support Andrew Cuomo's decision to bring his daughters to the Natural Wine Parade.
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LMAO.
 
originally posted by Ken Sacks:
As Keith says, in truth it's a matter of degree.

I think the reaction against "natural" wine is symptomatic of the recent Parker screed in Philadelphia... Whenever authority gets threatened, it fights back. "Natural" wines is an easy target since it does overlap some with what is undermining authority and sounds so political correct.
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Anheuser Busch was freaked out about craft beer, and produced a set of ads describing it as being made "by geeks in their basements." Now they are owned by the Belgians. Craft beer continues to grow, because it is better beer. InBev is in the "if you can't beat 'em, buy 'em" mode WRT small, eclectic craft brewers now. That's something to legitimately scare the crap out of you.

This movement has little to fear from the screeds. They acknowledge and define the threat that the conventional wine world feels (and rightly so). Even the scrums among the converts should be welcome. Anytime anything gets big enough to support internal factionalism, it's getting some traction.
 
I find myself incapable of speaking for Levi these days; nonetheless, I think it's worth pointing out that I suspect he's not talking about the "there's no such thing as natural" crowd that has long been assembled against the concept, but rather a new set of arguments being made by former defenders of the concept.
 
Excellent.

Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody. You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals.
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we are all different!
Brian: You've all got to work it out for yourselves.
The Crowd: Yes! We've got to work it out for ourselves!
Brian: Exactly.
The Crowd: Tell us more!
 
originally posted by Thor:
If you regard traditional cellar practices as part of terroir, then you have to add viticultural practices and everything else humans do, and the entire concept of "terroir" is going to fall apart. Why overstuff the term? Why not just call those things "tradition" and say that both terroir and tradition are important in wine.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. It's tradition. It may even be typicity (though in the specific case of LdH, it's not a regional one...at least not anymore). But it's not terroir.

I do think that there's a French mode of argumentation that the two can't be so easily separated, and that's based on a slightly different understanding of the word (it's theirs, after all) than the more rigorous, functionalist one you and I are using. I respect the tradition (and typicity) of the word's use in that manner, but find the separation of the concepts much more useful in terms of discussing what each brings to the wine, and find the catch-all nature of the cultural/historical version frustratingly vague. Maybe a little like "natural" in that regard...

There's a long essay somewhere on my blog that says the above in several thousand times the number of words.
Click to expand...

So if I get both of you right, making a grenache/cabernet sauvignon grown on the land of Romane Conti with 100% carbonic maceration and then fermented with Anchor encapsulated yeast selected in south africa, then aged in redwood barrels would just a slightly different expression of the Romane Conti terroir!!!!

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Again, in the french acceptance of terroir, Romane Conti terroir as known today cannot exist without the fact that it is made only from pinot, and all the rest of what you call tradition...
 
originally posted by Brzme:
originally posted by Thor:
If you regard traditional cellar practices as part of terroir, then you have to add viticultural practices and everything else humans do, and the entire concept of "terroir" is going to fall apart. Why overstuff the term? Why not just call those things "tradition" and say that both terroir and tradition are important in wine.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. It's tradition. It may even be typicity (though in the specific case of LdH, it's not a regional one...at least not anymore). But it's not terroir.

I do think that there's a French mode of argumentation that the two can't be so easily separated, and that's based on a slightly different understanding of the word (it's theirs, after all) than the more rigorous, functionalist one you and I are using. I respect the tradition (and typicity) of the word's use in that manner, but find the separation of the concepts much more useful in terms of discussing what each brings to the wine, and find the catch-all nature of the cultural/historical version frustratingly vague. Maybe a little like "natural" in that regard...

There's a long essay somewhere on my blog that says the above in several thousand times the number of words.
Click to expand...

So if I get both of you right, making a grenache/cabernet sauvignon grown on the land of Romane Conti with 100% carbonic maceration and then fermented with Anchor encapsulated yeast selected in south africa, then aged in redwood barrels would just a slightly different expression of the Romane Conti terroir!!!!

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Again, in the french acceptance of terroir, Romane Conti terroir as known today cannot exist without the fact that it is made only from pinot, and all the rest of what you call tradition...
Click to expand...

I have always found the point you made some time ago intriguing, and, I think, at odds with this. I paraphrase loosely from memory: in the (very) long run, superior terroir will win out over industrial winemaking decisions.
 
originally posted by Cliff:

I have always found the point you made some time ago intriguing, and, I think, at odds with this. I paraphrase loosely from memory: in the (very) long run, superior terroir will win out over industrial winemaking decisions.
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Again for me terroir is not only soil and microclimate.

One day someone tried to grow riesling at Sainte Hune. And obviously, it fitted well with the soil, climate... components. I see this act was part of the constitution of this very specific personality that I would call "le terroir de Sainte Hune".
Now this has little to do with the fact that the wines coming from this terroir have a much greater ability to endure inoculation, filtration, tons of SO2 and still show this very specific personality.

I tend to agree with people saying that my red Chateauneuf hardly shows its terroir. Chateauneuf has always been a blend. Mine is not.

BTW would you say that a cabernet sauvignon wine, done very traditionaly on la Romane Conti is an expression of la Romane Conti?

In french it would be : "une expression du cabernet sauvignon cultiv sur la parcelle de la Romane Conti".
Certainly not "une expression du terroir de la Romane Conti au travers du Cabernet Sauvignon".
 
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