Natural wine? Prove it!
I like the idea of natural wine. Clean, pure, additive-free, treads lightly on the Earth? Gimme! But natural is controversial, and I understand that.
Having been burned too many times by mousy or otherwise flawed “natural” wines I prefer to look towards producers who are fine stewards of the land, practice minimal but not dogmatic winemaking, and put great care in how they package the wines for the carbon intensive transport and distribution processes. Producers like Tablas Creek and Bedrock Wine Co. immediately come to mind. All the virtues of natural wine with none of the hairshirt drawbacks.
Interesting and thoughtful post, Robin. I need to say this, though: Most proponents of low intervention or natural style wines do not eschew SO2. The common assumption that these wines are not made with sulfur dioxide is a bad, and patently unfair, knock.
True, there is a tiny minority of producers around the world that avoid SO2, but that's what they are: A minority. Most producers who fall in "natural" categories who go through the trouble of sourcing from organic, Biodynamic or regenerative farmed vineyards and exercise minimum intervention in the cellar recognize the importance of SO2 (typically applied with requisite restraint) in the quality and stability of their wines. For most of them, it's an important part of their objectives in the first place, which is unabated expression of terroir and natural grape qualities. Why would they ruin this by deliberately crippling their wines by withholding SO2?
Good points, Randy. In my more limited experience, a substantial share of the wines I find on the natural shelf do talk about no or limited added sulfites. Probably reasonable marketing since there's a lot of consumer fear of sulfites thanks to the odd warning label regulation initially written for a much lower threshold for wine than almost every other sulfite-bearing food or drink.
I will say that quality low-sulfite wines like the El Burro featured today are clean, not at all funky, and at this point is still holding up well in a restoppered half-bottle left at room temperature for six days ...
Having been burned too many times by mousy or otherwise flawed “natural” wines I prefer to look towards producers who are fine stewards of the land, practice minimal but not dogmatic winemaking, and put great care in how they package the wines for the carbon intensive transport and distribution processes. Producers like Tablas Creek and Bedrock Wine Co. immediately come to mind. All the virtues of natural wine with none of the hairshirt drawbacks.
Makes total sense to me. Good example in Tablas Creek, too.
Interesting and thoughtful post, Robin. I need to say this, though: Most proponents of low intervention or natural style wines do not eschew SO2. The common assumption that these wines are not made with sulfur dioxide is a bad, and patently unfair, knock.
True, there is a tiny minority of producers around the world that avoid SO2, but that's what they are: A minority. Most producers who fall in "natural" categories who go through the trouble of sourcing from organic, Biodynamic or regenerative farmed vineyards and exercise minimum intervention in the cellar recognize the importance of SO2 (typically applied with requisite restraint) in the quality and stability of their wines. For most of them, it's an important part of their objectives in the first place, which is unabated expression of terroir and natural grape qualities. Why would they ruin this by deliberately crippling their wines by withholding SO2?
If anything, let's give these vintners their due!
Good points, Randy. In my more limited experience, a substantial share of the wines I find on the natural shelf do talk about no or limited added sulfites. Probably reasonable marketing since there's a lot of consumer fear of sulfites thanks to the odd warning label regulation initially written for a much lower threshold for wine than almost every other sulfite-bearing food or drink.
I will say that quality low-sulfite wines like the El Burro featured today are clean, not at all funky, and at this point is still holding up well in a restoppered half-bottle left at room temperature for six days ...