In the minds of most, wine is either something elite or something that comes in a box. Conventional but expensive wine and cheap swill represent the majority of the wine out there. But neither, not even the expensive stuff, usually tastes very good. Natural wine is the future. And The old guard wine establishment isn't that worried about it. Yet.
For the moment natural wine is predominantly a European phenomenon, and most bottles remain hidden in Parisian caves and Japanese bistros—the Japanese are wise to it and buy up large quantities. Though it isn’t dominating the mainstream yet, the natural wine revolution has been quietly happening underground since the ‘70s. This change in the way wine is produced, discussed, and enjoyed is as important as the revolutions that have taken place in coffee and beer over the past two decades.
So what is natural wine? What’s the difference between it and conventional wine? Simply put, natural wine is better for you, tastes far more delicious and complex, and in most cases, it’s cheaper too. The best way to define it without getting too technical is that it's minimally tampered with. It’s wine made from little more than sun, dirt, water, grapes, and passion. Conventional wines, on the other hand, contain added commercial yeasts, colorants, steralents, sulfites, and a host of different chemicals and additives that are truly poison.
In the process of industrializing wines, the product needed to be consistent and margins needed to increase. So relying only upon the harvest, the weather, a spontaneous fermentation, and a refermentation in the bottle—as natural wine does—wouldn't cut it. Winemakers add all that artificial stuff to control the wine, to make it look and taste the same every time, and it essentially kills the wine. Natural wines are living, constantly evolving, and never the same from harvest to harvest or even bottle to bottle.
And why is it my one punk moment? Because natural wine is truly counter cultural. It isn’t about marketing or money, and it flies in the face of what soms have been learning and teaching for decades. A natural winemaker must love what they do. Being a natural wine maker is not a get rich quick scheme. Far from it. The productions are smaller, the harvest and aging takes longer, and the risk of something going wrong—and therefore losing money—is greater. Yet in spite of all of that, you can still buy the best wines in the world for $35. This is the first reason why natural winemakers are punk: they aren’t in it for the money. They’re in it for the love of wine.
I’ve called it “natural wine” for the sake of communication, but the truth is, I hate the term "natural wine”, like i hate the term specialty coffee, because it implies that it’s something other than just “wine”. It seems to hint that it’s something not quite wine or something better than wine, but this is wrong. The incredible thing about the “natural wine" movement is that in seeking greatness in wine production, makers have discovered wine's essence. "Natural wine" is just wine. All the other stuff is some Frankenstein grape juice abomination.
Natural winemakers are the new rockstars and they are playing at every dive bar without giving you any notice that they are performing. If you make it to the show they will be your best friend, but if you can’t they’ll be just as thrilled to play for their real fans. They might sign a record deal, they might not. The only thing you can count on is that they are going to keep making music.
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