Natty Wine: A Millennial Con?

Somewhat beating a dead horse here (or wines that smell like one), but…

interesting… but it does touches the fact that it is a trend. I tried some good ones - Fred Cossard - and met some producers who are radical about the production. In terms of taste, I do prefer wines with little intervention… but I kind of drink everything

For me, the really flagrant mistake is the claim that “Natural wines are those made from organic grapes, untreated with pesticides.” Now that might seem logical, but there are plenty of “natural” producers who farm using chemicals.

YES! While certainly not limited to natural wines (I’ve heard of this when it comes to many food-related areas), this misconception that natural wines somehow put one on an ethical high horse because of their lack of ANYTHING not “natural” really frustrates me.

any of the well known natural producers using chemicals? that’s the anti-thesis of natural wine.

agree… all the producers I have met, specially in Jura and Burgundy, farm biodynamically.

It makes sense when one remembers that the natural wine movement began as a winemaking movement (emerging out of a context where over-processed wines with too much sulfur were one people’s radar, but the excessive use of agrochemicals hardly were), not as a viticultural / environmentalist movement; those are elements that entered the equation later.

In fact, the original use of the term “natural wine” was in the 19th-century, in contradistinction to “adulterated wine”, i.e. wines made from raisins, fruit concentrates and other less benign things. Such concoctions proliferated, especially in the immediate aftermath of phylloxera, when there was a real shortage of genuine vinfera wine. I suspect that Chauvet had this earlier usage in mind when he first used the term “natural wine”.

As a millennial (barely) and also a wine “enthusiast” (for lack of a better term), I can’t tell you how often I have to discuss this topic with my less informed millennial cohort.

The way I often describe it is as follows:

Wine that isn’t classified as “natural” can easily be organic/biodynamic/without additives.

Wine that claims to be “natural” can occasionally not be organic/biodynamic/etc.

“Natural” wine seems to often have a common thread of a variety of wine faults that winemakers not classified as “natural” often try to avoid. This seems to give many “natural” wines a somewhat similar flavor profile. (Now, I know that a fair number of the high quality “natural” producers somewhat avoid this, but I’m more referring to those wines my non-wine enthusiast millennial cohort are consuming. Not those high end bottles many of you are drinking.)

Also, not that I have any data to back this up, but a part of me wonders if some restaurants are turning to “natural” wine as a way to increase their wine list profit as many tend to be less expensive and more limited in supply. I would think that you could mark them up a bit more without worry that the customer is going to have previously purchased the bottle at retail or seen it on another list for a lower price.

Am I off base here?

And I clicked on this thread thinking that the makers of Natty Light came out with a canned wine…

Who are we to argue with Vogue UK on vinous matters? I thought the most interesting point was the one about low alcohol levels. There are quite a few natural wines that I enjoy drinking in the summer because of their fruity, light, bouncy, low-alcohol nature. I’m even more likely to open a kabinett where the producer stopped the fermentation with a dose of sulfur. Both work for me. I suppose that there are almost as many flawed natural wines as there are flawed conventional wines, although the most prevalent flaws differ in each category. There’s something about natural wine that tends to get everyone’s hackles up. I’ve never quite understood it. I suppose some of its cheerleaders can be a bit dogmatic, and even ridiculous at times, but so are some of the people who wax poetic about burgundy. There are some really wonderful non-interventionist, low-to-no sulfur wines made without innoculated yeast, and where the vineyards are worked without pesticides. I’m sure it’s harder to avoid bacterial spoilage with those wines but lots of people do it. What’s really remarkable to me is that while natural wines might still be seen as on the fringe, many of the practices that from part of natural wine have been incorporated in otherwise conventional winemaking practices such that they are now mainstream. Walk around any major winemaking region and ask about biodiversity, cover crop, organic treatments. And ask about roundup and chemical pesticides. I think the wines are here to stay. And if you don’t like them, there is still no one that will force you to drink them.

For me, (a millennial), it seems natty wine’s distinguishing features are Lactobacilli (like sour beer) and Brettanomyces bacteria and less about farming. There are plenty of biodynamic and S02 free wines that I don’t consider natty.

Exactly this.

The UK focus of this article might be important. I’ve always wondered if natural wine might find a more enthusiastic consumer base in the UK, where there is already a cultural interest in funky alcoholic beverages because of the cider industry. I went to college in Bristol and, aside from discovering wine at Averys, spent much of the rest of my time drinking what we call “real cider” which, to my understanding, is a fairly close analogue to natural wine in terms of crafting philosophy.

Lactobacillus is a natural wine feature?

I’d say more than 99% of the world’s red wines and a lion’s share of white wines go through MLF. Lactobacillus definitely isn’t a natural wine feature by any means.

That is Oenococcus oeni you are thinking of, not Lactobacillus brevis, Lactobacillus plantarum, and Lactobacillus acidophilus . Gives a completely different taste: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.1010

Which gives me a better definition yet. Natty wine is wine made with bacteria, that that produces compounds that were previously considered a fault or caused spoilage (i.e. not O. oeni): Bacteria

There is a growing list of grape, must and wine associated bacteria that can play an important role in the perceived quality of finished wine. As winemaking styles are migrating away from sterile and controlled techniques towards a more > non-interventionist and “natural” fermentation> , more bacteria are becoming sporadically problematic. Careful observation and environmental management of these fermentation is necessary in order to prevent unwanted attributes arising. Understanding the ecology of these bacteria is a necessary prerequisite in delineating the beneficial, benign, unwanted or catastrophic growth of winery associated bacteria.

Correct me if I’m wrong, since I haven’t studied much MLF, but if the wine’s fermentation and malolactic fermentation are spontaneous, isn’t the MLF going to be performed a plethora of LAB, not just Oenococcus?

Of course most if not all wines where the winemaker employs inoculation go through the MLF with Oenococcus, but I suppose the process is different with spontaneous fermentation (of which even many commercial wineries employ, at least in Europe).

I guess some producers can use minimal amounts of SO2 to stun most the microbes excluding oenococcus and saccharomyces, but there are still tons of producers who add sulfites only upon bottling, not before.

I’m starting to think that we can usefully distinguish between natural wines and natty wines. That way I can easily leave the latter to the rodent lovers out there and enjoy the former.

It’s all personal preference. I personally like a bit of Brett that seems to add saddle leather but not so much it adds barnyard. If you like sour beer, you will probably like sour wine. A bit is nice, but for example, 2017 Enderle & Moll Basis was too sour for me that I considered it a fault (I’m not convinced there wasn’t some Gluconacetobacter in there). I think some of this is backlash against Parkerized wines that some hipsters conflate all acid as good–even acetic acid. I personally am happy if vintners are knowledgeable enough to know how to control microbiology to develop flavors they want. It seems to me most natty wine producers lost control and are willy-nilly about their microbiology.

Winemakers that use the principles of sustainability, best agricultural practices, and non-intervention in the cellar to make a more expressive and more ethical wine: yes.

Winemakers that use the cover of “natural” to make mediocre or faulted wine with lazy or unrefined viticultural and winemaking techniques: no.