Why I hate "Natural" Wine
By Bruce Palling
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| A Bastard of a Barolo |
If you are one of the increasing number of people who seem to think that “natural” wine is innately superior to wine, save yourself the irritation of reading my diatribe, as any thoughts I have on this subject will never alter your fervently held prejudice. Or mine either. It is not a subject I even bother to devote much time to, but when my friend Per-Anders asked me to articulate my position, possibly for the sake of creating a controversy for the first issue of his excellent Fool Magazine (www.fool.se), I was happy to comply.
Let us get the terminology right before we wade in any further in these treacherous waters – no wine is “natural” – it is all the result of highly complex human decisions and interventions along with the mysterious assistance of the dirt, or “terroir” the grapes reside in. A more correct terminology for extreme “Natural” wine would be either fermented grape juice or perhaps more generously, impure wine. Don’t get me wrong – I am not opposed to ridding wines of dangerous chemicals. When it comes to biodynamic or organic wines, some of these are amongst the most profound wines in existence.
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DRC are now organic but don't know about in 1985, when these two beauties were born
I have been beholden to great wine for most of my adult life and consider pinnacles, such as the wines of Domaine Romanée-Conti, Leflaive and Ponsot or Chateaux Lafleur, La Conseillante and Rayas, to be amongst the greatest creations of humanity. Perhaps this is the problem because none of the 100 or so ‘natural” wines I have been forced to drink by friendly zealots, are anywhere close to this league and the majority actually tasted flawed or were more akin to vintage cider than anything else. The other problem I have is that because I have drunk thousands of superb wines over the last 40 years, I have a memory bank of what the greatest examples of many wines taste like over many vintages. If you try to relate the sensation of drinking a “natural” wine against such wines, there is no common reference point. This means that most “natural” wines I have drunk have far more in common with each other that their properly made neighbours in the adjacent vineyard.
The chief problem seems to be that naturalists seem to think that the inclusion of sulphites in wine somehow renders it undrinkable, even though this compound is created naturally in most wines after fermentation. Whenever devotees try to convince me, they boast of how most wine reeks of sulphur and their sensitive noses and palates simply can’t bear it. Occasionally I also catch of whiff of sulphur in a young wine, but it invariably dissipates with decanting or simply allowing the wine to breathe. Quite a few imperfections can be manifest in a newly opened bottle of wine – only last week, I was fortunate enough to drink a bottle of La Tâche 1985, which on opening smelt mean and musty, but within half an hour, it had shed such temporary imperfections and was knocking on heavens door. When it comes to a similarly difficult phase once a “natural” wine is opened, my experience is that it can only degenerate further with air or time out of the bottle. This is not something that naturalists believe though – instead, they usually parrot some nonsense about how the initial flaws or smell of decay miraculously vanish with a swirl of the wine in the glass!
I asked an old friend of mine, who is one of the leading importers of fine French wine into the USA, if he had much of a market for “natural” wines. He said that they had actually stopped stocking them, because the majority were returned because of the flaws, which only got worse when more time had passed.
That is not to say that some wines in this category are not acceptable – I have had some Loire wines that exuded a freshness and depth that was perfectly pleasant, but it does not stir my emotions or offer any profundity – rather in the way that some Beaujolais in a good vintage can afford pleasant sensations. This is the real problem I have with “natural” wine – I am happy to concede that a tiny number are fresh and delightful in the first flush of youth but after a decade in the bottle, they would be completely undrinkable.
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| A natural I really liked (Correction: revisited the website and it is merely organic) |
Perhaps the best bottle I ever tasted was at L’Anima, the first-rate Italian establishment in the City. Francesco served me a white wine made by Sergio Mottura called Latour Civitella (2009). I have even tried to purchase some but it seems to have sold out. Correction: when I looked further into this, it is in fact biodynamic/organic and has nothing to do with the natural stuff, which is probably why I liked it so much, In the limited period I have left on earth, I really don’t have time to learn an entirely new language of wine making when there are so many latent treasures I would rather explore.
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| The glorious food at Bastard in Malmo - pity about the wine |
Someone suggested we try this Barolo, which cost £60 or so but sadly it had no charm for me whatsoever. (If you want to make your own mind up, Farr Vintners are listing it for £310 case - Paiagallo Barolo from Canonica 2007). I think that in the majority of cases, naturalists are well-meaning people who are confused. When it comes to food products, such as olive oil, meat, fish and vegetables, the ones created with the least or no artificial chemicals are usually superior to the equivalent mass-produced product. In this case, I would be happy to agree most of the time. Or, perhaps they think that “natural” wine is comparable to the very best organically produced extra Virgin olive oil. Well, they are partially right as olive oil also degenerates from the very moment it is bottled.
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| Some of the "naturals" at the Dock Kitchen tasting |
Recently a very charming wine writer laid on a dinner at the Dock Kitchen with a dozen or so of her favourite “naturals”. None of them roused me to ecstasy. It is pointless to do this – the only way to make a convincing argument would be to line up what are considered the best examples of both natural and normal wines from specific regions and blind taste them. Another argument put forward by one of the leading French distributors of the stuff was how rotten most UK supermarket wines are and that these are better than these. He may well be right, but I am not basing my irritation at them because of this argument, as I don’t go to supermarkets to find good wine in the first place. However, the reason I am not bothered about them is that ultimately they will remain a fringe activity, as I know of no existing great wines committing hari-kari by going down the “natural” wine path. Instead, it remains a passion in the lesser or more obscure wine regions of the world, where they do not make wines normally considered worthy of aging anyway. Which is why, I am happy to raise a glass of wine and wish them well in their bizarre pursuit of purity at the expense of quality.
PS: Anybody who wishes to discover what great wine tastes like at affordable prices should go to 10 Greek Street, (www.10greekstreet.com) a new gastrobistrot establishment in Soho and ask to speak to Luke and see their little black book. This contains hand-written offers of amazing wines at ludicrously reasonable prices – the Courcel Pommard 02 or Conterno Barbaresco Asili 2000 should do the trick if you are wavering between the two schools of wine making.