In praise of Natural Wines

Yes, you read the headline correctly. But, before you all start the malicious ‘Benedict Arnold’, ‘Italian Army WWII’-style comments, let me set a few things straight by saying that I maintain deep misgivings about the Natural Wine fad and about its meaningfulness (or lack thereof). Indeed, Andrew Jefford wrote a relatively decent piece recently saying that Natural Winemakers should beware dogma but I think he never quite made it to the point that I’ve been making for so long: that dogma is answer and the problem. Isabelle Legeron MW, a Natural Wine proponent known as ‘that crazy French woman‘, is right to say that:

Wine started life a simple commodity but it has now been hijacked by fashion and consumerism. Natural wines are a nostalgic snapshot of what wine was like before hi-tech got involved.

Without a dogma or a set of rules, however, Natural Wine will be easily hijacked itself by any Tom, Dick or Henri wanting to ride the bandwagon. But at the same time, as Jefford states, this dogma is getting in the way of making good wine. Catch-22? For me, yes.

But onto the more positive stuff. A couple of weeks ago, I sat under a blustery French sky with a good friend drinking a bottle of Carbonically Macerated Corbières that was probably the most interesting wine I’ve had all year. Nothing like the brutal, tannic monsters of its region (it probably shouldn’t have even got the right to call itself Corbières, but what the hell), we drank nearly the whole bottle with nothing but pleasure and interest. Now, I’m not sure whether the Carbonic Maceration process has anything ‘natural’ about it but it was bought from a Natural Wine shop in Paris.

Now, doubters can scoff – as I do – at this point: a Carbonically Macerated wine in a Natural Wine shop is bit like a Rocker and his motorbike in the middle of a Mod scooter trip to Brighton. It just ain’t right. But you can’t take away from the fact that it was delicious and different. My friend, who works in the wine industry in France, said that there, like the UK or even the USA, lots of people (and especially the younger demographic) love the concept of Natural Wines.

‘I went to a Natural Wine bar in the south the other day,’ he said. ‘It was full. Full of young people.’

And I have to admit that, like a grand old spinster aunt candidly sharing tales of sexual misadventure with her niece, I felt a surge of warmth and compassion – happy that the world of wine was not old and redundant.

Thank God for Natural Wine, I thought, being as it is that all I ever hear about on the news or in the pages of wine magazines is blue-chip Bordeaux, luxury wines and prestige cuvées. I’ve written before – numerous times on this website – that the likes of top Bordeaux are very much in danger of losing touch with their future drinkers if not losing touch with the majority of wine drinkers outright. With all this talk of luxury, of the likes of Château d’Yquem being ‘unique, exceptional, a magic wine that makes one dream more than the others, and a dream has no price‘ (which is rubbish really because in the case of Yquem 1811 the dream costs precisely €85,000), about how much LVMH’s sales continue to grow, and about the soaring prices of these objects, how can you expect the majority of your consumer base (viz. those that aren’t in investment banking) to care?

The world of blue-chip Bordeaux and ‘luxury’ wines is, I believe, about as appealing as the sight of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in his underpants.

Even the Bordelais are beginning to realise it. In what must be one of the most heavily ironic – if not downright outrageous – news articles I’ve read this year, two young Moueix’s (yes, they of the famous Bordeaux clan) bemoaned the dangers of ‘losing touch’ with the younger generation.

It wasn’t just ironic that, in saying ‘the danger [was] in top chateaux charging prices that only billionnaires can afford’, they could just as easily be referring to the elder members of their own family – one also wonders how much ‘connection to the traditional markets’ they will get when the youth of France see two very well-off guys posing in flash clothing.

Compare that to the (admittedly) whimsical image of the unshorn, often hirsute Natural winemaker in his or her element (they are often pictured, soft focus, in the vines or standing in the middle of a diabolically disorganised winery).

Idealogically, I think Natural Wine has already won the battle the young Moueix’s are talking about. It has deservedly taken ground from the luxury wine market and will continue to do so unless the likes of the top Bordeaux make a radical shift in their pricing and image strategy. And I think we all know that will only happen when a cold front rips through hell, or we all decide we’ve had enough and vote Anarchist.

And while I’m patiently waiting for that to happen, and while I still maintain Natural wine is as much about consumerism as its antecedents, it’s hats off to the movement for restoring an old spinster’s faith in the future of wine.