Natural Wine


There is a lot of confusion around natural wine, for several reasons: it lacks a consistent definition, consumers don’t truly know what it means, there are many makers that abuse the label and use it as an excuse for making bad wine.
My default position, the wine still has to be delicious in the glass and be begging for you to drink more no matter what name it has. For most that will come with an overlay of personal preference.

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There is a lot of confusion around natural wine, for several reasons: it lacks a consistent definition, consumers don’t truly know what it means, there are many makers that abuse the label and use it as an excuse for making bad wine.

My default position, the wine still has to be delicious in the glass and be begging for you to drink more no matter what name it has. For most that will come with an overlay of personal preference.

The discussion of what’s on trend then comes into play. Particular styles and varieties go on a roller coaster ride of popularity, but, that’s for another time.

Ask many consumers and a portion of them will say that natural wine is that cloudy stuff that smells kinda funky.

To be more pragmatic if we define natural wine as not using chemical herbicides, fungicides, and, fertilisers in the vineyard, though allowing machines to be used to manage it, encouraging bio-diversity (ironic given the mono-culture of grapes that typically exists in vineyards) use of wild yeast and bacteria for malolactic and alcoholic fermentation, not using new or young oak that might impart aroma, flavour, and, tannin into the wine, not filtering, and, using only a little sulphur at bottling as a preservative we have a base to start from.

This is not necessarily complete and not necessarily the definition I’d use if I governed a theoretical body of natural winemakers. This is just a group of factors, that on analysis, are applied by many natural winemakers.

One additional overlay to natural wine is minimising the impact on the environment end to end. Seeing natural wines in resource intensive heavy weight bottle goes against this. This also supports not using earth or pad filtration which can impart flavour to the wine and in the case of earth, it isn’t exactly the safest thing to use in a winery. I would argue that cross-flow filtration might be acceptable. We enter the realm of lack of definition again. Is it OK to pump a natural wine? Is it OK to use a concrete vessel? We know making concrete releases an incredible amount of CO2 into the environment. What about wax lining the concrete? Is it natural wax. Tartaric acid is natural, citric acid is natural.

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Feeling Thirsty?

Highly refined on the nose and shows delicately aromatic fruit with a nose -tickling minerality of crushed stones and herbs. Round and juicy as well as highly finessed and salty on the palate, this is a fantasti c sweet Riesling. It is so fine and filigreed, so delicate and salty that you don't taste any sweetness here—just a dream of the finest Mosel Riesling. This is dangerously good, piquant and tensioned, and you will drink a bottle far too quickly. An outrageous Auslese! Drink 2026-2060
$70
$67ea in any 3+
$64ea in any 6+

Georges Deschamps Chablis 2022

Chardonnay | France, Burgundy

A richer more immediately generous iteration than the 2021 yet with a delicacy and elegance. Perfumed fruit ripe gold apple a little lemon oil at play and a salty pop. Delicous long fine, supple. Excellent texture, line and length, impressive élévage and that all important mid-palate weight. Complexed by the long slow ferment and time on lees. Great drinking.
$68
$65ea in any 3+
$62ea in any 6+
Urbina's 2004 Gran Reserva shows excellent development. One of those wines that requires some patience in the glass, building freshness with the passing of time. At the core fresh vibrant fruit and zippy acidity are at play. A little reduction blows of to reveal wonderful savoury flavours and an excellent mouthfeel with playful grip. A little sappiness and wild edge adding complexity. Loads of fun to be had here! Deep garnet. Aromas of ripe red berries, cherry pit and succulent herbs a
$110
$105ea in any 3+
$100ea in any 6+
The 1997 Riesling Vinothek Severin Fass was aged for 25 years in a large, traditional oak cask (filtered, though not on the lees) and opens with an intense yet pure, fresh and spicy, finely oaky bouquet with a deep, mineral tone of crushed stones. On the palate, this is a very intense and complex Riesling slowly building up and revealing great finesse and balanced juiciness. The wine develops a sustainable, aromatic and structured finish with great finesse, lingering salinity and fine tannin gri
$1,100
$1080ea in any 3+
$1060ea in any 6+