Simple as I am, I would think that wine is, by definition, a natural product...
Well it isn’t… Quite a few chemical products manipulate the development of the grapes and the production of the wine, to a greater or lesser extent.
Is that bad? Probably not. Chemical products are probably used in 99% of the production and as far as I know this has not caused any casualties to date. Alcohol has, so who's the culprit here? The sugars in the grapes, which, as you know, are converted into alcohol during fermentation, or the chemical products?
Do you have an apple tree? Or tomato plants? Then you know that fruits and vegetables don't always look as perfect as they do in the store.The reason is that they don't sharpen your appetite. But that's no reason not to buy them. Many people wouldn't even want to taste a square tomato or a misshapen apple. Others won't touch those products in the store with a ten-foot pole! Maybe we should include those things in a blind tasting?
Natural wine is an interesting concept, especially in times where local, sustainable, and authentic are becoming increasingly important buying arguments. If the wine is just as tasty and costs the same, wouldn't you prefer the wine from a local natural winegrower to an industrially manufactured formula wine? While you drink the latter more often than you think...
The quality will be fine. You don't have to worry about that. Please note, natural wine is not a guarantee of quality and since making wine according to the rules of the natural wine art is a lot more difficult, you will often encounter stale or sour variations. This is part of the development of natural wine and is equally the case with starting non-natural winemakers.
The price is still a bit of a squeeze. Making natural wine is more labor intensive, a quantity is often lost due to the limited possibilities for adjustment, and it never concerns large volumes, so that the unavoidable fixed costs can be divided over a smaller number of units. But it's no different with other artisanal, locally manufactured products...
If there is a problem, apart from quality and price, then it’s the fact that natural wines are not regulated anywhere. I know, subjecting a natural wine to strict manufacturing regulations sounds… unnatural. But the fact is that anyone can print the term natural wine on their label, without this having any value or offering any guarantee. As is the case with organic, biodynamic, vegan or ecological...
You can hardly consider the advice “as few interventions as possible in the vineyard and in the cellar” a strictly defined guideline. And yet natural wine is based on that. And maybe that will be the success of this movement in viticulture. The fact that you promise to use as few "wrong" products and actions as possible to arrive at a wine, "as Mother Earth had conceived it" (dixit Peter Vandamme, Klein Rijselhoek BE).
Isn't that also the success of certain top chefs, who have broken through with the combination of leaving the beaten paths and applying a no-nonsense culture with respect for what nature offers?
Rightly so!
But how does a natural wine differ from a “normal” wine?
First a short lesson in “grapeology”: vines need sun on the leaves to develop the sugars through photosynthesis. Those sugars, as I mentioned before, are converted to alcohol during fermentation. And there is little or no sun on drizzly rainy days, as we often have here in Belgium.
In addition, our wet climate increases the risk of mold. Whereas in historic wine regions morning mist is dried by the beneficial sun rays or a strong breeze, here we often simply get rot due to the lack of the drying effect.
And so growing wine grapes is not so obvious here and a winemaker sometimes has to be inventive...
Anyway, and I apologize in advance if I was misinformed or if I speak too optimistically, these are the specific foundations of natural wine:
-in the first place, mold-resistant varieties are used. Grapes that combine different qualities through specific crossings. The Johanniter, for example, is a fungus-resistant cross between Riesling, Seyve-Villard, Ruländer and Gutendel. The first is responsible for the taste sensation, the other three for the chances of survival.
The difference between the Johanniter and, for instance, Chardonnay, is that the former can give grapes in our climate without chemical manipulation, while the Chardonnay... You know what I mean.
-in the vineyard specific plants and shrubs are planted to keep or attract insects and other bugs. Biodiversity, to put it in an interesting Scrabble word.
Aha! You might be thinking about those roses that often stand at the top of rows of vines. No... They are there because they pick up certain diseases faster than grapes, so that the winemaker can intervene in time with... Yes, probably.
-treatment of the vines with insecticides and herbicides is of course excluded. That's probably even the first commandment...
-no irrigation, if the sky does not provide water from above, the roots of the vines themselves must grow deep to find it.
-the grapes are picked by hand. Something that many renowned houses make publicity with, as the ultimate proof of the special quality of its wines, is therefore self-evident with natural wine.
-the line is continued in the vinification: no manipulation! Chaptalization (additional sweetening, see the section on sugars above), deacidification (because less sugar equals more acids), filtering by external influences, carbon filters... not with natural wines. No reverse osmosis or cryo-extraction either, though I have no idea what those terms mean...
-the fermentation is also different because no cultured yeasts are used. The yeasts present on the grapes and in the air must suffice.
-remarkably enough, no use of wooden barrels (or wood chips), because that too is seen as manipulation. And certainly if they are sulfurated (treatment of the inside with sulfite)!
-and there is a word that is sensitive in viticulture: sulfite. We'll come back to this later, but know that wine without sulfites does not exist because it is also a by-product of alcoholic fermentation. But the addition of sulfites, to prevent certain deviations or to make the wine resistant to transport and premature spoilage, is only allowed minimally and actually preferably not.
-the alcohol percentage... The average winemaker manages the fermentation process by heating and cooling (fermentation is temperature sensitive and can be started, motivated or stopped in this way). Not allowed, because it’s an unnatural procedure. So: if the fermentation stops on its own, you can see how much the alcohol content is. Can be okay, can be disappointing.
Pro
-very little sulfites does not mean that you will not get a headache or a hangover from a lot of wine... However, that hangover is less bad depending on the sulfites present, because sulfites slow down the breakdown of alcohol by the liver and therefore the hangover extends. Moreover, headaches mainly come from dehydration of the brain (unless you fell in your drunken stupor and banged your head), which could -in theory- be prevented by drinking as much water as wine.
But apparently some people simply are allergic to sulfites? Then natural wine could be an interesting consideration.
-would a natural wine better reflect the terroir, given that it has been minimally manipulated? Doesn't seem illogical to me. In any case, it will be a slightly different wine every year. Because we are talking about a natural product, not a formula. Fun for the enthusiast!
-as with any trend that is launched by a minority and may or may not be sustained, the peers monitor the results and adopt the positive, achievable parts. In this case we are talking about limiting chemical products in the vineyard and sulfites in the cellar, but also about general interventions such as the targeted planting around the vines. And that can only be good for everyone!
-many obvious interventions in conventional viticulture cause problems in the long run. Such as barren soils due to excessive use of pesticides. Or surfaces that are hard as concrete due to heavy tractors and machines. They don't have these problems in natural wine production!
-the name says it all: respect for nature. If you plant certain flowers and plants to attract specific insects, which in turn ensure a balance with the harmful species... then you create an ecologically optimal environment, right? Or am I going too fast here?
-vroeg of laat, waarschijnlijk eerder vroeg, kom je als wijnliefhebber op een punt dat je het hebt gehad met dertien-in-een-dozijn-wijntjes. Eenvoudigweg omdat de productiemethodes van grote producenten geen avontuur of diversiteit toelaten in hun wijnen. Het kan goed zijn dat je wijn benadert als frisdrank en steeds hetzelfde drankje wil. Maar, met alle respect, dan ben je geen wijnliefhebber die graag nieuwe smaken ontdekt, ook als het al eens kan tegenvallen. Want dat maken de vele ontdekkingen het wel waard. En natuurwijn voegt daar een heel nieuwe dimensie aan toe. Zo liggen de kaarten nu eenmaal.
-you can only make good natural wine in a hygienically correct environment. Turn that around: good natural wine is, by definition, made by a craftsman who leaves nothing to chance. If it's tasty, then it's GOOD! In all areas.
Contra
Well, the wine must be tasty, of course. So it must be tasted. But we like to do that.
Conclusion It’s a bit of a gray zone and certainly no guarantee of good quality. And it takes a little more effort. From the winemaker and from the wine lover. But if the wine is ok, you can hardly object. Unless you prefer monotony, manufactured in labs.
Agreed, there is a lot of nice wine between those two extremes, and we will taste them all! But a little goodwill towards natural wines will be better for everyone in the long run and will allow the trend to be further developed and optimized. Also on a larger scale. Right?
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