Many of the wines poured at Brumaire I can describe only as bizarre. There was Ruth Lewandowski’s Feints cuvee, a half white, half red wine from Italian varieties in Mendocino County. There was the sparkling Grenache, from Vin de California, that somehow came out the color and opacity of Goya mango nectar. And the wines made from cold-hardy hybrid grapes like La Crescent and Frontenac Gris, from Deirdre Heekin of La Garagista in Vermont, and the cider-wine amalgamations of Heekin’s protegee Krista Scruggs.
Were these wines good? I found it difficult to evaluate them, as I imagine an art critic might have felt when looking for conventional markers of subject and form in a Jackson Pollack painting. Some I found wonderful and surprising. Some I found undrinkable. But my “undrinkable” — if I found volatile acidity, for example, or excessive brettanomyces — appeared, at Brumaire, to be many people’s “delicious.”
No dog in this fight but I can tell you that at the 7% Solution tasting in July 2017 the Ruth Lewandowski wines were in my top 5 overall of all the wines being served.
Unusual blends for sure but tasty and very well balanced. Added plus was Evan Lewandowski (owner, winemaker) was a cool dude to talk to.
Honestly, I don’t know why people hate on fun, interesting wines that drink well in their youth. As long as natural wines are tasty, not expensive, and go with food; I don’t see much to hate.
Also a good thing that boundaries are pushed, though for those ‘pushing the envelope’, I’m happier when they do it under IGP/IGT etc (or VdT/VdP etc.) rather than under DOC/DOCG/AOP/AOC etc.
If they present additional interesting wines, then I’m content.
I attended the Brumaire tasting (I’ve been to all three of them) and yes, there were number of wines I’d describe as unconventional - I think that’s a far better description than “bizarre”, as quoted in the article above. I’ve noted before that it can require a bit of recalibrating one’s palate if these are not the types of wines that you’re used to tasting. And although I’ve found it’s true that there is certainly a greater tolerance for Brett among many natural wine fans than among wine consumers in general, I know a number of producers of natural wine (as well as producers who are not quite in the natural category but are pretty close to it) who hate Brett, and their wines are very clean. You also have to keep in mind that the Brumaire tasting showcases some of the edgier natural wines out there, in that they have very little or no added SO2 - many natural wines, including some from producers who poured at Brumaire, aren’t as low in SO2.
Agree with Tom about Evan Lewandowski’s wines, and the one singled out in the article quote from the OP (2017 Feints Cuvée) was actually a highlight for me at Brumaire. Different for sure, but a fun and delicious wine. And talk about different - he makes his wines in Utah, though the fruit is from Mendocino.
Edit: I’d also like to point out that the article from which the quote in the OP was taken was generally supportive of Brumaire and of the natural wine movement, while raising some good questions and leveling some justifiable criticism as well. The full article is linked in the OP and is well worth a read.
I mean no offense to anyone here, or anyone there (at the event)… People like what they like, for their own reasons.
But, with the preface that good (non flawed) wine is hard to make, and involves a lot of ancient procedures, that have been refined, but overall have mostly stayed the same (at least for artisan producers), and the best grapes from well loved varietals are expensive and so to intentionally mis-classify those processes as “interventionist” or “doctored”, is just plain silly, one one hand, and dishonest on the other. But Hey!, all is fair in marketing right?
I think, and have good reason to think, that this IS clever marketing, to sell flawed wines, either flawed by design (hipster fashion, like baggy jeans) , or flawed for economic reasons (it’s cheaper to make flawed wine from cheap unknown grapes)…
Fortunately, I think it’s more amusing than annoying (most of the time), and it too, shall pass.
I just can’t excuse flawed wine in the modern wine world. Even if you’re the most hardcore traditionalist or ‘natural’ winemaker, there’s such a wealth of information out there about how not to make flawed wine, it is complete ignorance to repeatedly make flawed wine.
Now, I suppose that does tend to depend a little on personal preference (i.e. Brett, Aldehydes).
I guess the conclusion is… Natural wine can be exceptional, but does not need to be flawed in order to be interesting.
Perhaps I’m being ‘too sensitive’ here, but when I read the term ‘doctored’, it comes across as a ‘negative’. And I just don’t think it’s ‘right’ to put wines into the ‘either/or’ camps here . . . at all.
Look, at the end of the day, I’m all for experimenting and pushing boundaries - that’s how we all ‘grow’ in whatever we do. And as Ken and others have pointed out, there are tons of wonderfully made ‘natural’ wines and have been for a long time - before they were ‘cool’.
Many - not all - of these wines, though, are quite ‘fragile’ and require either constant refrigeration or consuming very very quickly before they become something other than what the winemaker most likely intended. The fact that most either disdain SO2 or just really don’t want to use it helps create this situation oftentimes - and again, no hating going on here - just observations.
At the end of the day, my litmus test is whether a wine smells and tastes good to me - regardless of how it is made. I am not giving ‘passes’ to wines that were made in a ‘natural’ style and may smell or taste ‘off’. No passes whatsoever. I may not say that they are ‘bad’ wines, but I would not drink them, nor would I ‘support’ those who are willing to ‘overlook’ these faults because of the processes made.
And getting back to the original point here - I add commercial yeast so that means that I ‘doctor’ my wines? I beg to differ - and would assume most others would as well.
Truly curious to keep the conversation going . . .
No, but I do try a lot of different wines ITB, and I go out of my way to do so. I’ve had quite a few of these “natural” wines, and overall I would call them flawed, either by issues related to low/no S02, or way under ripe, or both., or no oak, or very cloudy or oddly colored etc etc… I’ve actually liked some of the “Orange” white wines I’ve tried, and some odd whites, in the same milieu as Beaujolais, (fresh, young, cold) and they’ve been OK.
I guess in the same way (metaphorically) that the original street hip hop performers were sort of an anti-technology/establishment hipster movement, I think this is like that, and of course you now have those performers well ensorcelled by the establishment, and I suppose that some might even say that was “flawed” music in the same way as I call these prototypical natural wines flawed, to torture that metaphor even further.
Your yeast point is well taken, especially when it’s known ITB that most “wild” yeasts, are merely commercial strains hanging about, and now that I think about it perhaps that “meme” (i.e. Wild Yeasts are natural/better) is how we got to this “natural” wine sub-genre…
Either way, I view it as a juvenile reaction to authority, which is the fertile medium hipster movements originate from.
I do think that ‘Brumaire’ is meant to be ironic, Karl, but to label a ‘natural’ wine fete in Oakland as a “Brumaire-ian coup” sounds rather far-fetched to me. Makes no real sense, but sounds sophisticated…
This is the best reporting I’ve ever seen on this subject. An important article, whether you agree or not on the validity of the subject.
"‘Natural wine’ advocates say everything about the modern industry is ethically, ecologically and aesthetically wrong – and have triggered the biggest split in the wine world for a generation. "
I like this part: " “There is no legal definition of natural wine,” Michel Bettane, one of France’s most influential wine critics, told me. “It exists because it proclaims itself so. It is a fantasy of marginal producers.” Robert Parker, perhaps the world’s most powerful wine critic, has called natural wine an “undefined scam”.
“It exists because it proclaims itself so. It is a fantasy of marginal producers.” Robert Parker, perhaps the world’s most powerful wine critic, has called natural wine an “undefined scam”.
