Natural Wine jumps the shark
A full accounting of the pros and cons as natty wines go from counter culture to ubiquitous
A few weeks ago, I experienced a wine drinking disaster. While traveling, I returned to one of my favorite watering holes. I ordered a bottle with my girlfriend and when we took our eager first sip it was undrinkable. Anything potential positive was drowned by a blinding, nail polish remover acidity.
I slunk back to the register with the bottle an offered a bashful, “It’s just not what we were looking for.” I picked out another bottle from a favorite producer of mine and returned to our table. When I smelled the second wine in my glass, my heart sank again. It was more tolerable than the first, but there was a pervasive stench of sweat and spoiled meat. Too embarrassed and conflict averse to send back a second wine, we chatted for a few minutes and left with the full second bottle still on the table.
We had managed to order two faulty wines back to back, one with volatile acidity and one with out of control Brettanomyces. Usually, this kind of bad luck would be incredibly rare bordering on impossible, except that the wine bar we visited specialized in natural wines.
Reaching ubiquity
In the early 2010s, natural wine was a hip new heresy for young winemakers and gourmands. I was a big supporter then. I was tired of big brand, factory-made wines and loved discovering smaller natty producers with exciting, fresh, ready to drink juice. Natural stuff was harder to find but usually $25 and under when you did find it. I loved perusing the great selection at Sunrise Bottle Shop in Austin and got on the mailing list for Oregon’s Marigny wines.
That early period is over and natural wine has peaked. Now it’s available in major markets anywhere wine is drunk. Hell, one of my favorite artists just dropped this line in his latest release,
“All you gotta do is hit my line,
Whenever you feel like spending some time
Nothing good comes to those who wait,
We can sip natural wine at my place”
As the demand for natural wines has grown so has the price and in that rising tide, a lot of winemakers are swimming naked. I have tasted several faulty, putrid and downright undrinkable natural wines in the past year and paid a lot more for the privilege. The two faulty wines my girlfriend and I tasted were $56 and $67 each - not exactly chump change even for the well compensated wino!
This move from cheap and cheerful to premium priced “serious wine” makes the risks of natural winemaking seem less like quirks and more like major flaws.
The Negatives - Vulnerability to faults and other concerns
1] Fining, filtration, and the addition of sulfur dioxide (SO2) help protect wines from chemical imbalances or nasty bacterias and fungus like Brettanomyces. Natural winemakers avoid using them, claiming that less human intervention always makes better wine.
As a result, natural wine can be difficult bordering on impossible to quality control. Wines from the same vintage can be radically different from bottle to bottle. Faults can develop or intensify after the wine is sold, even if they weren’t noticeable during bottling. This means that buying natural wine is always a risk. Back when natty bottles were $25 less, that was an easier risk to take. At $25+ or more at retail or in a restaurant environment with a mark up, that bet might not be worth it for many customers.
2] For the same reasons, it wouldn’t make sense to cellar most natural wines, because they lack the stability and ability to improve with time that traditional wines possess. There’s nothing wrong with “Drink Now” wines, but the complete inability to develop or even maintain quality over time is a limitation.
3] It’s difficult, at times impossible, to tell how “natty” a wine is going to taste before you buy it. Am I getting a slight hint of Brett that could make the wine more interesting? Or am I getting full pigpen kombucha? Mismatched expectations create disappointment. This puts a lot of pressure on store or restaurant staff to know and communicate it to guests.
4] Rather than highlighting the skill of the winemaker or the qualities of the terroir, there is a remarkable sameness to a lot of natural wine. The standard formula is slight effervescence, sharp acidity, and vague tart fruit flavor overwhelmed by a kombucha-like wang. Many taste like they could just as easily be from Chile as Chinon.
5] Natural wine began as a fresh alternative in a sometimes stodgy industry. There was a playful transgressive quality to it, like when snowboarding rose up alongside skiing. Old school wine critics dismissed the movement with a classic “get off my lawn” shtick.
These days, some natural wine zealots are more close-minded and dismissive than their detractors. As the natural wine landscape has changed, many winemakers speak about their practices with religious fervor, whether they result in good wines or not.
6] There is a certain arrogance in deciding that a family who’s been using the same low intervention techniques for several generations is not “natural” enough because they add SO2, uses light filtration, or don’t have an arbitrary level of biodiversity in the vineyard. I’m rocking with whatever Jean-Louis Chave wants to do, whether the hipsters approve or not.
The Positives - What good still remains
1] Natural wines can still be that cheaper, fresher, more casual alternative they once were. This type of wine continues to resonate with younger customers - a category that the wine industry is very worried about losing.
2] Their rise in popularity have made less commercial, more honest farming and production methods more mainstream. There’s a greater pressure for even centuries old wine regions to phase out gross shit like pesticides that are verboten for natural winemakers. Savvy wine drinkers mock wine brands that add dyes and sugars. All this is good for the planet and for us.
3] Natural winemakers have highlighted the potential of under-loved regions like Jura, Sicily, Mexico, and Slovenia that weren’t on the average drinker’s map just 5-10 years ago. Likewise, for under-loved grape varieties like this Saperavi from Georgia!
4] Natural wine introduces new flavor profiles that expand the palate (barnyard, kiwi, tart tropical fruit). This skin contact Malvasia from Paolo Foppiani has a really cool mix of orange peel, white pepper and tartness that was a great partner for rich creamy pasta.
5] The best natural wines has an electric zip to them that is hard to describe. Many somms I respect believe 0/0 natural wines (those with no additives of any kind) can be the best and purest representation of terroir possible
Where do we go from here?
In this substack, as in life, there are no tidy conclusions. I still believe that low intervention, vineyard-focused winemaking is the best for our planet and can create the most exciting wines. I’m going to continue to support and champion those wines and the people that make them.
But I’m more skeptical than ever of natural wine as a marketing term and of the bars, restaurants, and winemakers that lean too heavily on it. The goal should be delightful wine made in a way that honors the planet. There’s a lot of ways to get there. Happy drinking to us all.