Natural wine movement, just noise?

That was a tweet I responded to the other day, but I needed more than 140k.

Natural wine bars existed in France since 1982, in the past five years wine bars and wine -oriented restaurants who focus on them in that city exploded to over 160 in Paris. There's at least one in virtually every appellation in that country, from hill top remote towns like Valvigneres to Toulouse and even to Beaune.They've blossomed like dandelions in Brussels, the UK, the US and Scandinavia. As wines, they've spread to Austria, never left the country of Georgia, and finally has gone wild in Italy. Israel is sadly slow on the uptake. But Australia and  the United States have a new generation of winemakers side-stepping school and making wines in the old fashioned way.

When I published The Battle for Wine and Love in 2007, there were maybe three wine makers who made wines I would happily drink on the west coast. Today I might be able to say I can count them on three hands. In a few years, that will pop. 

The formation of groups where winemakers can exchange tastes and ideas has helped. Austria's got one, Spain has one, France, one + numerous tasting events (La Remise, Haute les Vins, La Dive, ViniCircus---a score more.) Italy's natural wine groups are fractional, now there are about  3 -4 splinters. As a result where five years ago in Italy there were a few handful of natural wines, today there are a good 100 + producers, new producers mixed in with the older traditionalists. Carso, up north, is crawling with them. Mt. Etna in Sicily is vino naturale  a- go- go and even more shocking, there are natural Chianti's and Brunellos and Barolos. Rome has a natural wine bar, (no broken knee caps yet) and there's an Italian natural wine guide.

 Wine importers trawl the international wine shows ( mostly occur in France and Italy)  for new finds. Good luck to them. Competition is fierce. New York City has more than five  importers specializing in them. California has about five as well. Okay, so Napa is slow to embrace the wines on their restaurants list, understandably, but affirmative in Sonoma, Bay Area and LA, there's natural in Las Vegas, a wine bar in Kentucky and natural wine in  the Carolinas. Speaking about Kentucky, one reader of this blog, who happened upon The Battle in a used book store is now a faithful follower of Chambers Street. He just got a passport and is thinking about going on Europe Natural this summer.

The powerful ambassadorial wine tasting, The Renaissance des Appellations travels globally. Yes, that one is for Biodynamic wines but there's plenty of overlap in the natural wine world. The Italian organization,  Vin Natur is one organization alone that has 142 producers in 9 different countries, held a tasting and conference in Zurich this Fall. There, Terje Meling, head of the Norwegian monopoly, considered the largest buyers of natural wine worldwide, presented his deadpan rationale for their buying practice. Customer demand.  Beyond that? The 'natural wine' world has reintroduced a variety of kinds of wines to the public. No longer only red, white and rosé, there is orange as well. Barrique has given way to anfora and old wood and concrete. Red wines can be delicate or medium weight. Maybe it's circumstantial but I do accredit the wine geek pushing the wine envelope with embracing variety, and this whether natural yeast or not, is a very good thing for everyone.

In short, evidence of growth is circumstantial, and I hope it always stays that way. But it is there. These wines are not for everyone for sure, but there is still a very strong demand that exceedssupply. So, is it just noise? 

And is it a movement?

Where there is growth, where there is pooling of talent and pooling of ideas, where there is cross pollination, and deep kissing on the dance floors, where there are wild packed tastings in limestone caves and in conference centers where there are  groups that form and exchange information, wines,  fun and drama, there is life. Here exists a strong and often fanatic community of the makers and the drinkers. This movement is about as much white noise as the anti-war movement in 1970. And mostly people are knocking them back with gusto and little ceremony.

A writer recently  wrote, "To call the “natural wine category” a “phenomenon” is an exaggeration. If it is a phenomenon, then it is a very small one and certainly not “the most powerful movement rocking today’s wine market.” It represents a tiny fraction of the global wine market in terms of both value and volume. 

Well, then I say, this is a phenomenon because this is a desire that is people driven, not market. The winemakers are growing, the drinkers are growing, hell, I can't get the wines I want anymore. The competition is cut throat and if I dont' act quick, the stores run out of them. I hear the same complaint from Pascaline Lepeltier up at the restaurant Rouge Tomate in New York City. 

 

Big Wine and the conventional wine world might be slightly threatened  but not desperate. That might change if ever ingredients will be required on a wine label. I imagine their lobby $ will be too strong, the ingredient list, while nice, won't ever happen. But one can see it on negative tweets and attacks on natural wine.  I do find it amusing to see the use of the world nature/natural catch fire on the Lallemand catalog. 

* Yeasts selected from nature. The word occurs 9 times on that one page. There are yeasts pointed to the natural and organic community. Prediction?  This will step up

I would imagine that their yeast etc sales are not impacted. Their money is safe. Natural wine folk tend to make very little wine, and losing their market share, no big deal. But what happens when natural gets industrialized in the way organic food is now?  What happens when the demand for these kinds of wines hits the supermarket? What happens when Whole Foods bends to their customers demands to get real with their wine program, and presents wines from the bottom up that are natural or natural enough? That's when the impact will happen. And it will. But the companies will adapt. They'll find some way to make money when the yeast and sulfur sales decline.

This is not a fad. Or at least no more a fad than heirloom tomatoes and good taste is  a fad. Now, bad taste? That can be a fad. Just look at fashion from the 80s, or hot pants.

No matter what you call minimal intervention wines, it's all about returning to a more sensible time in wine making when an ego stayed out of the winemaking and stayed in the farming and what was in the glass dazzled.

But take a look at that above graf. Is it inflammatory? To some people it is. And that brings up the vitriolic axe that even my fellow wine writers need to grind. I understand the threat from Big Wine (wineries + chemical farming/oeno companies) but I can't understand those who need to attack a group of winemakers who dare to go natural and those people who seek them out. The name calling and bickering is as bad as it ever was in the sandbox at the erobertparker.com board. The point is to keep focused on the wines and not the debate, because how can you possibly debate something that is delicious and is not overly processed. I fail to see the argument.

So, long term ramifications? When people wise up to the ingredients inside a wine other than grapes, demand will accelerate. Big companies like Gallo, Boisset, and who knows, probably even Yellow Tail will have their "natural" wine line extension so they don't lose the supermarket sales. More wine makers who are happy with small scale production will see if they make the wine they actually want to drink, there are customers waiting to drink with them. And happily, more and more farmers will be going organic, biodynamic and the real love of farming will come back to the vigneron. Who knows, we might even get a real word in this country for one person who makes the wine tends the vine.

So, noise? I'm not a betting woman, but I might make an exception here. You in?

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By the way, on another wine note. Had the  NV Bereche et Fils Extra Brut Reserve, it was just gorgeous.  (also at Chambers) 

Comments

[Awaldstein]

Really nice post Alice.

The culture, values and tastes of the world are changing.

This is indeed a ground up revolution of taste and health. The market,as in the broad-based consumers, have spoken.

In NYC,the corner has certainly turned.

I walk by Chambers Street Wines daily and almost daily, I pick up another treasure to sip.

Family dinner the other day at Balaboosta with an all natural (and really great) wine list. Business lunch at the Odeon with a great bottle of Trousseau from the Jura on the list. Lunch at an all organic restaurant in the village with a sizable, mostly European certified organic wine list.

There are those who close their eyes and see everything as it was yesterday.

There are those who demand change to meet their needs and beliefs.

Natural wine movement. It's a ground up, consumer and producer reality.

Lucky us to be here enjoying it.

[Wineshlub.blogspot.com]

AS any economist can tell you, everything happens on the margin. Are there still plenty of people buying high octane spoof juice? Of course. But the market has peaked. If you doubt that, all you need to do is look at the flash sites, where the vast majority of offerings are high points hedonist dreams. Look no further than WTSO, which seems to offer wines made by Philippe Cambie ("the man with the Midas touch") at least every other day. And I don't know how many times I've read copy that accompanies offerings of 15+% ABV wines aged in 40% new oak (down from 80% a year ago) that stresses the winemaker's commitment to terroir and sustainable methods. So yes, I think that the so-called "Natural Wine Movement", which is about as cohesive a force as the "Occupy" movement, is having a major effect, and in a similar manner.

One interesting little factoid. Three years ago my daughter spent a college year as an exchange student in England and joined the wine club. She got to sit through a presentation from a Gallo rep who demonstrated, complete with satellite maps, his company's commitment to terroir. Even then the tide was turning...

[Amy Atwood]

Great points Alice. Yes, clearly the natural wine movement's influence is far-reaching. One can tell from all the rumblings coming from conventional producers now, who are being questioned about their farming and yeast practices. I have heard them speak, many are annoyed that these questions are now being asked. This shift in attitude is mostly due to consumers and trade learning that there is another path, one not strewn with additives, chemicals or 'paint by numbers' winemaking. And just as Alice predicted, we are already starting to see the big wine companies spin off their own 'natural' selections. We, the lovers of natural wine are truly the 1% of the wine world, but the 99% is changing because of us. Cheers, Amy

[Sharonwine.blogspot.com]

"By the way, on a non-natural wine note. Had the NV Bereche et Fils Extra Brut Reserve, it was just gorgeous."

Bérèche is very much natural wine. As Peter Liem notes: "Bérèche completely stopped using chemical herbicides in 2004 and has planted cover crops in all of the vineyards, and since 2007 a portion of the vineyard is being converted to biodynamics."

Raphaël is also experimenting with using natural yeasts not only for the first fermentation but for the second one, which I think is a risky and exciting (and very natural, of course) tack.

[Alicefeiring]

Good to know, and when those experiments get into the bottle will be curious to see the difference.

[Sharonwine.blogspot.com]

He's only done 500 of the 2nd fermentation, but he uses wild yeasts for the first.

It is also interesting to taste the difference as he ages them under cork instead of crown cap before disgorgement. Really nuanced.

[Alicefeiring]

All of his champagne done under cork?
The first time I had his champagne was last year. Loved it.
Have you had any of this duo-naturale ferments?

[WineNotice]

A gorgeous read on the state of natural wine.

[Sarah May]

Thank you for this post, Alice. It is great to see a person who has a passion for REAL qwines who also wants to share it with the world. how many people I know who may have been earlier want their kudos for being their first? I think it is great that more and more people are getting into natural wines. heck until I read your book I had no idea but realized that the wines I like were in fact natural wines.
Upcoming in Rome is the 2 day Vini Naturali event. It is a madhouse, but there are great producers.