Day 20: Natural in Detroit

Putnam Weekley is…well you’ll see.

TRASH OR TREASURE

Detroit loves natural wine. It’s a matter of affinity.

The Motor City’s devalued stock has left a bewildering abundance of free resources for a young independent class of creative people. Caved-in crack houses to the urbanist are like the neglected old peasant vines of the natural winegrower; with care, and a good woodshop, these decayed relics yield priceless virgin forest finish lumber, straighter and harder than anything on the market.

When the remains of these old buildings are bulldozed, if not restored or redeveloped, Detroiters plant gardens. Detroit’s urban farming leads the country abundant wasteland into a rare source of wholesome fresh food. It makes me think of Mark Angeli coaxing tremendous late harvest pink wine from plain old Grolleau, or Salvo Foti finding Francisi on Mount Aetna.

For a long time I was surprised by how eagerly ordinary wine drinkers would return to my Southfield store to buy fairly obscure naturally made wines, regardless of any stated natural credentials. The truth was a lot simpler than I wanted it to be. It turns out these wines taste good to people who drink wine normally, one bottle at a time, like after work, or with friends. My peers in the trade do not drink wine normally. We sometimes find these wines troubling. Our palates are marinated in “mainstream” wine-drink and it affects our judgment. Such unadorned, unadulterated flavors are not easy to fit into our incremental conceptual schemes, so we either refuse to stock them or we resist giving them prominence in our collections. Once I understood this, and stocked natural wines to the hilt, the wine business suddenly became fun and profitable again. And there is no going back.

Now I am beginning to think Detroit needs a dedicated natural wine bar/shop. Maybe I will open one. But first we need to define terms.

WHAT IS NATURAL WINE?

People manipulate grapes to make wine. But vines, and their microbial allies, also manipulate people¬ – to make farmers and drinkers. And what a success! Farmers and drinkers now propagate vines on.

When viewed in co-evolutionary time, the molecular workings of winemaking were, until recently, a complete mystery. Nature and art negotiated a tense and rather fixed mutual boundary. The weather, the slope, and various other uncontrolled variables determined whether one obtained immortal sweet nectar, or sour vinegar, or something in the middle.

Gross selection was our species’ defining role in this ecosystem, and a knowledge culture grew up around it. But now that’s changed. Instead of ‘farmers and drinkers’ interacting more or less proportionately with random vine mutations, vine crossings and microbial ecology, on a pace measured in years, now ‘oenologists and consumers’ intervene in the creation of wine at the cellular level, or at least more convincingly than before. Vast quantities of common wine have been “improved.” Predictably, the success and spread of this approach has forced an epistemological question: what does “improved” mean?

DETROITERS

I imagined posing this question to two well-known Detroiters: 1930s GM chairman and punk rocker .

Sloan said “the business of business is business” and that the business of the wine business is to offer wine “for every purse and purpose.” To him, product improvement is decisive and it can be viewed in two parts: 1) eliminating flaws – like VA, brett, DMS, etc. and 2) adding and enhancing performance and package features that consumer segments demand – like colors, flavors, packaging tricks, etc.

Smith disagreed. She said flaws are valuable. To her “improvement” is a lie used to sell soulless plastic trinkets to vulnerable consumers. The lie implies that all that is public and free is trash, so that we become willing slaves to a consumer junk mill. “People have the power,” and the way to really do wine is to take it back. Wine, like rock and roll, comes from technology in the public domain. Farmers, not focus groups.

Maybe we can judge Alfred and Patti by their works. Alfred P. Sloan, more than any other individual, created 20th century Detroit, my home. Both of my parents worked for General Motors, and I continue to enjoy the benefits of their collaboration. That being said, I personally loathe cars, and I’ve found GM cars to be carelessly crowded with gimmicks and quick to exhibit odd noises and failures. As big and generous as GM was to my family, our neighborhoods and region now bear the brunt of its lie – er – ‘lack of sustainability.’

Patti Smith on the other hand … well – go ahead and cry when you watch this hopeful, anthemic promotional video:

There are two notable Detroit cultural landmarks shown in the video above. One is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Industry mural by Diego Rivera. (New Yorkers might have had http://fbuch.com/crossroa.htm Diego Rivera mural, if only the Rockefellers could have resisted 1930s anti communist hysteria.)

LAFAYETTE CONEY ISLAND

The other landmark is Lafayette Coney Island, home of Detroit’s premier gastronomical achievement: the coney dog.

A coney dog is common food. It’s based on a repurposed ‘trash’ beef organ, the heart, which gives the chili sauce a deep, alluring flavor. And coneys are cheap to produce. It’s no surprise then that Patti Smith is a fan; she even held her wedding reception at Lafayette. The list of celebrity Lafayette fans is long; it even includes importer Joe Dressner.

In 2007 I discovered by chance that Franck Peillot’s 2004 Mondeuse paired exceptionally well with coneys. And in honor of Corey’s 31 Days of Natural Wine writing assignment I snuck a bottle of Peillot’s 2006 Mondeuse into Lafayette last week where I drank it at a countertop seat with two dogs “up.”

Maybe Mondeuse was never called a trash grape variety outright, but the Sloanian grape variety “ladder of success” always seemed to suggest such a thing to me. Serious wines are made of Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and sometimes Syrah. There must be a rational reason why the luxury market for Mondeuse is so trivial.

Sitting there at the Lafayette lunch counter, eating and drinking, the thought occurred to me: maybe the decline in plantings of Mondeuse can be explained by the lack of an international market for coney dogs. Who among the wine and food commenting classes has even tasted Mondeuse with a coney, its best and most natural pairing?

The coney transformed the wine into a swivel of cocoa-like warmth. Earth flavors became spice flavors, and I couldn’t help but smile back as Soupy Sales’ portrait grinned down on me from the wall above.

SUPINO

I took the remains of the wine and three coney dogs to my all-time favorite pizzaiolo Dave Mancini. I knew exactly where he would be on a Tuesday afternoon: working the oven at Supino Pizzeria on Russell Street. Dave opened his pizzeria last year, decorated it with reclaimed furniture and beautiful trash antiques, and began turning out thin crust miracle pies. Dave says his pizzas are most comparable to a hybrid of New Haven and New York style, with the occasional outburst of iconoclasm on top.

As expected, the unexpected delivery of Lafayette coneys was warmly welcomed, and Dave was happy to test my coney/Mondeuse pairing thesis. Based on his comments, the first taste of wine must have struck him as rather lean and tannic. (It opens up.) However, as expected, after a few bites of the coney, Dave confirmed his approval with raised eyebrows and another long drink of wine from a tall soda cup.

SLOW’S YARDBIRD

After leaving Supino and prior to a planned natural wine jeebus, I needed to settle another pairing question. A few nights earlier I had shared another Franck Peillot wine, 2007 Altesse, with my colleagues at Slows Barbeque. There had been a photo of Slows’ Yardbird sandwich in Bon Appetit . Wouldn’t that pair well with this wine?

The wine has a certain depth and butterscotch-like sweetness buried in muscular acidity. I thought it would go well as a palate wash with gooey chunks of smoked bird between slices of Texas toast.

So last Tuesday I took a table on Slows’ patio and ordered the combo.

This is why I don’t like notes. They lie. I wrote: “Deep sweetness, muscular acid like young Chassagne / ‘stand up’ to gooey yardbird? NOT ALL the way / scorched sugar oozing grapes / white caramel yellow infused / with pollen cornflower.” The wine did indeed “stand up” to the dish in a powerful way. The problem is that I slipped briefly into over-thinking mode, the curse of the third tier (maybe the lack of a dining companion can explain that). I can’t believe there isn’t but one 100% Altesse available in Michigan.

My solo visit to Lafayette and Slows was prologue to a natural wine jeebus arranged by Phillip Cooley. Phillip is an eco-builder, passionate Detroit booster, and the majority owner of Slows Barbeque. Like me, Phillip has a wine agenda too. He likes the real and wants to see more of it available locally. Earlier this year we teamed up to list as we could, but Phillip wanted more, so he challenged his favorite New York retailer to put together a case of items that are not available in Detroit. Perhaps this whole natural wine idiom will continue to spread like a germ through the spontaneously renewed, repurposed arteries of our proud 3 century young city.

Some of the wine facts below were provided by Ben Hagan at Slope Cellars,.

JEEBUS

We gathered in Phillip’s apartment with a group of volunteers who had just come in from a beautification project in front of the old MCS train station. We attempted to drink this wine “schnook” style – i.e. taste, evaluate, repeat – but less than halfway through the lineup the conversation melted into workday topics. The wine became ambience, which is a fine thing for wine to be.

German Gilabert Cava “Brut Nature” NV (Penedes, Spain – Savio Soares). An organically grown blend of Xarel-lo, Macabeo and Parellada, aged on its lees for 16 months with no dosage. It was very dry and even a little tannic. It reminded Corine of crabapples. I imagined it was assembled from a fairly large pool of Penedes organic juice as a priority for selling the label, but I liked it well. Someone wished out loud for John Shoeninger’s Thai-style steamed mussels and I became hungry. The lack of food may have altered my reliability as a tasting correspondent on this occasion.

Dominique Derain “Chute de Derain” Vin Mousseux NV (Burgundy, France – Jenny and Francois). Biodynamic sparkling wine made from Aligoté from one of Burgundy’s rebels – Dominique never chapitalizes his wines nor filters nor adds yeast – he rarely, if ever, uses SO2. It was a frontal assault of pungent aromas – cheese, gunpowder, broken concrete – which yielded to a bracing palate with sweet curly cues of green and yellow fruits bursting with life. Someone in our group rated this a 4½ out of 5.

Anne et Philippe Bornard “Tant-Mieux” Petillant Naturel NV (Jura, France – Savio Soares). 100% Ploussard, made as a sparkling rosé, biodynamic. Nicely funky and fresh, with some traces of residual sugar. I don’t know anyone who can get enough of these natural fruity fizzy pink wines from the Alpine foothills. They make fine drinks in social settings or solo.

Chateau K “Cuvee K” Bergerac Blanc Sec (Bergerac, France – Jenny and Francois). Blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc, certified organic. This was one of the lower priced wines in the kit and I liked it. Beyond that, it tasted pretty much as expected, like sharp, dry white Bordeaux. The Alfred Sloan over my left shoulder did not detect any lack of ripeness (no candle wax, no overblown grapefruit). On the other side Patti Smith yawned.

Jean-Marie Rimbert “Petit Cochon Bronze” Rose 2008 (Saint-Chinian, Languedoc, France – Jenny and Francois). Mostly Cinsault. It seemed pretty nice. Low acid. Silky, not heavy. Pure enough. I think the flavors got a bit lost among the more boisterous liquids on the table.

Sablonnettes “Les Copains d’Abord” 2007 (Loire Valley, France – Jenny and Francois). Made from Grolleau and Cabernet (presumably Cabernet Franc), no chaptalization, no added yeast, biodynamic. 11.5% alcohol. This wine got several in the party very excited. It was dark, clean and lean, with charming aromas of plain ripe berry fruit and punctual currant flavored tannins.

Julien Courtois “Originel” Vin de Table (2006) (Loire Valley, France – Savio Soares). Menu Pineau and Romorantin – this is Claude Courtois’ son’s wine. Ambitious wine. I thought for sure it was some kind of Chenin Blanc, harvested low and late, filled with oily Anjou mineral sensations and funky reduction. Pretty tremendous wine I think.

Julien Courtois “Element Terre” Vin de Table (2006) (Loire Valley, France – Savio Soares). 100% Gamay Chaudenay an heirloom clone of Gamay. Something forced a bit of wine to ooze past the cork here, and the aromas seemed to indicate the possibility of some sort of in-bottle malolactic events taking place. Regardless, I couldn’t have guessed it had anything to do with “Gamay.” It was obviously very ripe and thick, chewy, and intriguing. I’d like to experience this with all of its freshness and acidity intact, or, like all of these wines, in an isolated encounter.

Emile Heredia, Domaine de Montrieux “G” Vin de Table 2006. 100% Gamay. Organic. Pale and pretty. Charming. Easy to drink. Interesting too. Scented.

Primitivo Quiles “Raspay” Riserva Tinto “Brut” 2003 (Alicante, Spain – Jose Pastor). 100% Monastrell, “this is the Lopez de Heredia of the south – super old-school, large used american oak barrels, extended bottle ageing, fantastic stuff.” Opinions diverged on this wine. Phillip objected to the oak flavor. Most of our drinks are unoaked, and we’ve found even good oak-aged wines to be fairly incompatible with Slows’ menu. And planning Slows’ list is the usual purpose for these types of wine meetings. But I admired the wine. The wood was perfumed and soft and wilted delightfully around sun-softened red berry, vanilla and sweet spice flavors. I’d like to get this with beef cheeks or braised goat.

By this time it was late. Jarred Gild of Western Market in Ferndale suggested we grab some coneys. I wanted him to try the Peillot Mondeuse/coney connection anyway, so I went along with him. The memorable part was how the flavors seemed indistinguishable from textures, like a pillow, soft, dry and comfortable. I probably needed a real pillow at this point in the evening.

Just as we were finishing up I saw Wolfgang Puck executive chef Marc Djozlija picking up takeout bag. I did not have a chance to ask him what he planned on drinking with his coneys.

Coda

Next day, we finished Phillips case of wine with a bit of takeout from Slows.

Ca Sa Padrina “Mantonegro” 2007 (Binissalem-Mallorca, Spain – Jose Pastor)
Mostly Mantonegro (local varietal), blended with Callet (another local varietal), Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot; low yields, stainless steel fermentation, very little new oak. Again, Phillip and I diverged in the pleasure we took from this wine. With Slows brisket (extra fat) and mustard sauce it seemed perfectly balanced, if big, and what can you expect from Mallorca wine? Everything seemed integrated and wholesome, with everything in proportion. Call it “mouthfilling” but not so filling that it didn’t pair perfectly well with the brisket.

Montebaco Ribera del Duero Crianza 2005 (Ribera del Duero, Spain – Jose Pastor). 100% Tinto del Pais, or Tinto Fino (Tempranillo); no chemicals, hand-harvesting, high-atitude plateau-grown, dry-farmed, unfined/unfiltered, stainless steel fermentation, 15 months in French oak. This was the only wine in Ben Hagan’s case that I didn’t especially care for. Phillip was also underwhelmed. It tasted like raw, sharp inexpensive wine without any sense of its origin. Brisket did not help it. I am curious what people on the internet think of it.

Ray Heald was my high school chemistry teacher. He and Eleanor lived down the street from my house. It would be nice if laws changed to allow Detroiters buy wines from Jenny and Francois, Savio Soares and Jose Pastor. That way, anyone with the money and the odd sense of priorities required might survey agricultural arts from their spiritual neighbors in other parts of the world. This might add fuel to the way we imagine making our environment serve us, rather than so plainly serving it, mostly in factories churning out consumer crap.

“I like gettin’ old.” – Patti Smith

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: BC Natural with Cherries and Clay; or: Canadian jokes are soooo 1980s

Day 19: Why is there Not a Large Natural/Organic/Biodynamic Movement in Germany?

When i started this whole project i was wondering why i got the same answer back from everyone whom i asked about natural wine in Germany/Austria. The response was always some variation on “sure there is plenty of natural stuff. Just try some Nikolaihof.” After about four or five of these (seemingly) stock responses i decided to hit up Lyle Fass of rockssandfruit about the subject to find out why so many people otherwise knowledgeable on the subject came up with the same response. He was more than happy to oblige, given his passion for the subject, and to take his mind away from the pain of being a Mets fan.

Considering that Germany gave partial birth to “green politics” and “green parties” I have always thought it strange that there is not a bigger organic movement there. The biodynamic/natural wine movement has been a tremendous boon to enhance the quality and healthfulness of wine. Unfortunately, while the creation of a strict set of dogma works wonders at the desks of wine writers, the application of these principles is not so straightforward in the real world of winemaking. This is especially true in Germany, given the severe topography of many of its vineyards and its unique winemaking style. Many of the best sites in Germany are extremely steep and are often spread out which makes them very difficult to farm. It is my opinion that organic principles need to be adapted to Germany with a bit of flexibility and a healthy dose of common sense. And while we are at it organic principles should be adapted this way in all wine-growing regions, not just Germany.

Some of the basic tenets of “natural” wine, which can be dogmatic at times, have proven to be a problem for German wine growers. It has always seemed a strange disconnect. Sure there are organic and biodynamic wineries in Germany. Some are very good (Wittman, Clemens Busch), some merely good (Bruder Dr. Becker, Gysler) and others not so good (Zwölberich, Sander). There are also a good amount of producers that fall just short of organic and/or biodynamic and that will be explored later.

One popular organic association in Germany called Bioland has 22 “fruit juice and wine producers” listed on their website. Another organization called Ecovin has a large following in the Rheinhessen with the average size of the estate being 10 ha. Wittman is also classified with Ecovin. Demeter, which is the main organization of biodynamic growers is also very big and has a small number of German estates that are certified. Plus there are also a small number of estates that adhere to these principles that do not belong to any organization.

For the bulk of my research for this piece, I used paraphrased notes from a translation of Reinhard Lowenstein’s chapter on organic/biodynamic wines from his book entitled “Terroir.”. Reinhard Lowenstein is the man behind the brilliant estate of Heymann-Lowenstein in Winningen in the Lower Mosel. Interestingly enough, the Lowenstein estate is not organic which does not stop me at all from enjoying the wines. Much of the below is taken from that book and is principally relating to the organic issue in Germany.

Since natural wine is almost non-existent in Germany as classified by its supporters there really is not much to talk about but the organic issue is more interesting and practical in regards to Germany. Part of the natural wine dogma is minimal sulfur. This is obviously only compatible with an academic at best selection of German wines. I do not even say estates, as in Germany an estate typically makes a range of wines from dry to sweet and sulfur is added to stop fermentation so the wine can correspond to the respective pradikat level. Sulfur is also used to prevent oxidation and re-fermentation in bottle, which can happen when there are higher sugar levels present. Sweetness is only a by-product of the most important thing that determines a German wine pradikat level, which is ripeness. I consider estates like AJ Adam, Schafer-Frohlich, Clemens Busch, Peter Lauer, Knebel and Stein to be natural wine estates. Clemens Busch is the only one that is classified organic. Many of my brethren I am sure do not. Some of these estates do use herbicides and fungicides when needed, even if they are ambiguous about it, as it is not worth it to lose money while preserving the moniker “organic.”

I know of people who make wine as naturally as possible with minimal sulfur intervention in Germany but as we all know a large part German wine is on the sweeter side and the only way for this to be accomplished is to add sulfur. That is how Kabinett is Kabinett and Spatlese is Spatlese etc. Kabinett and Spatlese and even Auslese can be dry but that is less common to find over in the US market. Also for the Grosses and Erstes Gewachs you need to sometimes add sulfur to stop fermentation. If you just let German wine ferment to its “end expression” you will more than not often wind up with halbtrocken and feinherb wines. Some can actually be at or below 9 grams of RS and be legally “trocken.”
There are some who claim there are no “natural” or good Mosel growers because of the sulfur issues inherent in German wine. This is rubbish. A noted Mosel grower says that it is impossible to make top-level Mosel Riesling, Alsatian Riesling and/or Wachau Riesling without sulfur. So the whole natural wine thing regarding sulfur and German wine is a bit like pissing in the wind. Most of the anti-Mosel and anti-German arguments about sulfur make people’s faces yellow. Also having no or minimal sulfur is much easier to do with red wine (Lapierre) than it is white wine (Overnoy).. The tannins in red wines from the grape skins, pips and stems help prevent the wine from oxidation so it is easier to have minimal sulfured red wines. Overnoy is an exception of someone who can make poure, cripsp white wines without sulfur.

The Green movement which started in the 70’sformed factions and one of these declared that mechanization in the vineyard and chemical treatments would kill the soil and leave the plants weak and extremely vulnerable to disease. To avoid this the key is to nourish the animals, soil, plants as to enable themselves to defend against disease and rot and if and if this does not work there are a number of alternative and healthy treatments against rot and other vineyard nuisances.

An interesting point in Lowenstein’s book is that as a result of the Green movement in Germany, many extremely toxic fungicides and insecticides were altered to make them much more environmentally friendly and also nitrate levels were lowered in artificial fertilizer. This is a huge step and one in the right direction but many observers continue to just say they spray and do not note the steps taken to reduce harm to the environment. Also, if organic mixtures are applied to the soil via helicopter or say tractor, dogmatists immediately declare it is raping the soil. This seems silly. How can one get a horse in the Winninger Uhlen? Have you seen how steep and terraced this vineyard is? A counterargument could be made tio work the terraces by hand.

Lowenstein also raises the point that if you try and strengthen the vines and plants against disease it is bound to fail. The vines just cannot fight the fungal diseases brought over from America. The European vines genes simply have not had enough time in their evolution to become resistant via mutation. Many organic growers have no choice but to spray special preparations against such things as downy mildew. Vermin also presents the same problem. Through much practical experience it has been shown that the vines cannot protect themselves from the various vermin and many of the so called natural products are not the best choices. But again this is a complex issue as it depends on the vermin, their natural predators and what type of synthetic or organic sprays are used and so forth.

A funny little anecdote is that in the old days, and at the beginning of the organic movement, nicotine was the accepted product to rid your vineyards of vermin. It is obviously very toxic it was ruled illegal to treat German vineyards before WW II. Another very toxic insecticide was called pyrethrum which was proven to cause nerve damage. Pyethrum can be created from either synthetic means or from blossoms. So either way this one screws you. One variation that is used is the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis whose poison kills worms and at the same time being harmless for endotherms. Another application which is considered more efficient and intelligent is something called RAK which gives off female odors that confuse the male butterflies and as a result of this odor being released into the air the male butterfly cannot find a female to mate with. This is not a great way for a male butterfly to live but so far there have been no protests from the animal rights movements. But again because of the dogma associated with “natural, organic and biodynamic wine” certain consumers out there would be appalled that a synthetic substance is used in the making of their organic German wine. Kind of funny how it works and how dogma can really bite you in your ass if you do the proper research.

Mildew is a huge issue when it comes to the battle between conventional wine growing and organic/biodynamic wine growing. The Green Party/organic wine movement of the 70’s approved the famous “Bordeaux mixture” in the 70’sbut synthetic modern compounds were not approved. The latter are extremely difficult to decompose and they are so complex that their decomposition is difficult to even describe. But the main and vital problem is that the fungi learn to become resistant and a as result the chemical industry is very pleased. Why? Because they can push through new patents and sell even more expensive sprays. Are these sprays any worse than the copper compounds used by the organic movement? And if they are deemed worse, who decides? Copper is a heavy metal that is also toxic and can accumulate in the soil. In many vineyards in Germany, as elsewhere, there are copper concentration limits that are way above the legal limit. Sometimes they are above the legal limit by a hundred fold and these sites should be declared hazardous waste zones, yet it is all certified organic. Not so black and white anymore is it?

Lowenstein says we need to look for “sensible compromises” which he even admits is extremely difficult. Many people who like and promote organic products tend to be blinded by what he calls “good person” ethics and “idea-world ideology” and have a lack of real knowledge when it comes to this regarding wine. This also affects the organic growers who have moved away from the 70’s/80’s Green Movement and they find themselves asking themselves difficult questions. Who is in need of more protection? The grower, the consumer or the earthworm? How should weeds be pulled out? By hoe, tractor, by hand? And if one attaches the proper device to the tractor to pull out the weeds what does one do then? Do you use a flammable device or chemical weed killers? Is the weed killer worse than the tractor. Many sites in Germany due to their steep slopes cannot be attended to by tractor. With the use of fossil fuels by the tractor, the transmissions of rust particles are in play now as well. The tractor also compacts the soil which can destroy animal (microbial, worms etc) life in the vineyard. What about humans after all? Should man be included in the equation? Is it ok for a man to work eight hours a day in the sweltering heat with a hoe or pulling out stakes by hand in a very stony and very steep vineyard in a bent-over position all day? How much more should the wine cost if the grower sets aside the tractor and chemical treatments. One euro, two euro, five euro, twenty euro? Lots of questions and not a lot of answers out there. Are consumers in the USA and abroad willing to pay more, for example if Clemens Busch is consequent with organic and biodynamic viticulture? Are they willing to pay more for high-quality wines? So far no as Many of Clemens Busch’s better wines are not imported to the USA because of price issues.

There are so many other issues out there to. Some of the most conscientious producers in Germany are happy using their methods but will criticize other growers who use subsidies for being organic to make lousy wines. No one wants a bad wine, organic or not. There is a grower in the Mosel, who shall remain nameless, that will use a synthetic fungicide to battle problems in the vineyard when it is warranted. His wines are fantastic and he will never be labeled organic and that is a shame as his wines are wondrous and very high quality. Growers in Germany will more often than not leave the door open to use a fungicide and herbicide if the situation warrants it. It is a shame that many miss this grower’s wines, but they are being missed, especially by those in the fundamentalist organic movement. Most of the top growers in the Mosel do not use insecticides. Vineyards are greener than ever with cover crop abounding and happy bugs, weeds and whatever else can flourish. Many producers can even make it without herbicides depending on the weeds, weather and the size of their vineyards. A large plot of say 100 hectares is impossible and way too costly to manage without herbicides. It is a wonderful sight I can attest to as vineyards do not look as dead as they used to 20 years ago. The same can be also said of Burgundy today.

I hope this helps and can somewhat explain why there is not a huge movement in Germany as there is in France and other countries. There are many practical and logical issues that come into play and just because German wine does not fit into a certain dogma espoused by some does not mean they are not conscientious growers trying to make the best wine possible.

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: Detroit’s Putnam Weekley Slows it down; or: Keep your LeBrons and your Kobes, give me some Bill Laimbeer and Joe Dumars

Day 18: Natural in Spain

“The Australia of Europe,” an increasingly used term in the wine world these days, is a pretty low blow against a country with as rich and varied a viticultural history as Spain. But, as we saw recently with the classification of Chardonnay as an acceptable grape in the storied Rioja appelation this is a country that has adopted an international style so popular down under. K & L Wine buyer, newly created cyborg, and hip-hop head Joe Manekin explores the vexing problem of why a country that seems so old school is fast abandoning its vinous past.

For a country that boasts more land under vine than any other, with a variety of terroirs, climates, winemaking traditions and styles that is only surpassed by France and Italy, Spain has a long way to go in the natural wine world.

The definition of natural wine has generally come to encompass organic or biodynamic vine cultivation in the vineyard, fermentation with native yeasts, minimal intervention in the cellar, and significantly lower doses of sulphur at all stages of the winemaking process. Another classification of this sort of farming and winemaking could be ‘traditional.’ In other words, the way that conscientous, quality oriented winemakers made their wine before the advent of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in the second half of the 20th century, and prior to the emergence of the new French oak barrique, lab made yeasts and assorted heavy handed cellar methods.

If natural wine means wine made traditionally with the fruit of well tended vines, why would Spain – a country steeped in wine tradition and covered (to the tune of 1.16 million hectares) with vines – be lagging far behind Italy and France in the production of natural wines?

“The Spanish are very attracted by a modern attitude towards winemaking and keeping up with the trends as they perceive them in the world,” says Spanish wine importer Andre Tamers of De Maison Imports, a company which focuses on small production, traditional, natural Spanish wines.

“They have been very influenced by wine critics and styles that are pervasive today as a way to differentiate themselves from their past.”

That past, up until fifteen or so years ago, usually involved picking grapes that were not super-ripe, and aging for longer periods of time in larger vessels, often times made of American oak, or perhaps concrete. Some of the wines which resulted from this practice tasted oaky and dried out, lacking vibrancy and fruit. Often times they were also oxidized. Many of these wines, however, were distinctive and delicious, as Santo Domingo and New York based wine blogger Manuel Camblor recalls, “[the late 80's-early '90s] was a time when five bucks could still buy you a wonderful bottle, if you had your head on straight.”

Of today’s similarly value oriented bottles from Spain, Camblor is far less enthusiastic, decrying most of them as ‘homogenized and globalist’ with ‘zero soul.’

‘Zero soul’ wines sure are popular with the vast majority of discerning Spanish wine critics in the US, abroad and even in Spain. There are countless examples which score 90-92 pts on a 100 pt scale, and cost a mere $15 or less. While those who value consumer reports may be elated, others with more drinking experience, or even those who are relatively new to Spanish wine and have tasted the real thing, tend to look for authenticity.

Bodegas R. Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia, in Rioja, is that rare Spanish wine that appeals to a cross section of new Spanish wine drinkers, seasoned Spanish wine afficionados and even the hypercritical, generally French leaning tastes of natural wine fans. They farm organically, harvest by hand, allow fermentation to take place naturally in huge, very old American oak vats, and in many respects make wine in a manner similar to how it was made in the early years of the bodega in the late 19th century. As staunchly traditional as the wines are, Maria José Lopez de Heredia is far from critical of more modern efforts being made elsewhere in Rioja and throughout Spain.

“Spanish palates have evolved with the progressive integration in the European Union,” says Lopez de Heredia, “and have become more international in the acceptance of styles and flavors. Also all palates get adapted to the products that exist on offer.”

So are Spanish palates becoming more international, appreciating the same sorts of richer, heavier, higher alcohol wines which have sold so well in the US? Not necessarily so, according to Andre Tamers:

“Spain is still a very classic wine drinking nation and many of the wines that show up on our shores are expressly for a foreign market very similar to the way Sherry was sold two hundred years ago to the British (sweetened).”

Another importer who has been seeking out authentic, traditional Spanish wines is Jose Pastor, who imports properties such as Señorio de P. Pecina in Rioja and the unusual, but rewarding Monastrell based wines of Primitivo Quiles outside of Alicante.

“I would say that it is getting harder to find honest [Spanish] producers,” says Pastor.

Neatly summing up the current lack of conviction plaguing Spanish winemakers, as well as importers and retailers, Pastor observes:

“The problem that I see here, is that we are trying too hard to please other people when we should first learn how to please ourselves.”

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: Lyle Fass on why we don’t see many natural wines from Germany/Austria; or: I should put a Mets joke here

Day 17: Els Jelipins & The Future of Spanish Wine(?)

If i grew up in Winnipeg, Canada i suppose i would someday want to live someplace warm like, say, San Sebastien. After a stint at American culinary institution Charlie Trotter’s sommelier Linda Milagros Violago did just that, settling down as executive sommelier at Mugaritz. Not too bad.

One thing about me is that I can be stubbornly single-minded about things. A great example would be how one day, I showed up at a restaurant in Spain, in the middle of the Basque countryside and just before sitting down for lunch I said, “I want to work with you.” Roughly eight months later (including two months of Spanish lessons), I started work in said restaurant. It was all I wanted; all I could think about. Unfortunately, on my first, jetlagged night I suddenly realized that I hadn’t thought about what the hell I was supposed to drink once I settled into my new home. I knew going in (though conveniently forgot) that my options would be pretty limited. I thought that I was screwed. There, I said it. And I won’t take it back. (Note to reader: Before anyone fires off a nasty email to me at said restaurant thinking I’m dissing Spanish wine, just remember, the theme here is “natural wine”.)
And then I came across this odd, fat, dark, bottle with scribbles on it for a label, with a tiny back label written in Catalan. I was told it was “raro” – odd – and reductive. Well, reductive it was. At first. Ah, but when given a bit of air, it was – and is – like no other Spanish wine I have ever met. She is Els Jelipins. And with this bottle, came renewed hope for the future of Spanish wine. At the very least, for me, it was love at first sight.

For the 2003 vintage, only 1500 bottles were made. Roughly an hour west-ish from Barcelona, in Font-Rubí, in the middle of nowhere – literally – is where you find the modest home of Glòria, Oriol and berta, set in a clearing on a hill. The winery is adjacent to their house and both buildings function on solar power. The wine is a blend of Sumoll – one of the few indgenous varietals still cultivated in Catalunya – and Garnacha. The 80-year-old vines of Sumoll are growing with a majestic view of Montserrat, about 45 minutes from their home. I’ve seen some gnarly vines in my travels, but none quite like these. In total, there are four hectares of vines in rocky, calcareous clay, tended for by people that they trust.

When I first tasted this wine two years ago, it was very reduced and funky and I had fears about being able to move this wine, let alone about its ageing potential. I soon realized that it just needed some more time. Three months after that first taste, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, the change was that dramatic. I fired off an email to the address listed on the charming website (www.elsjelipins.com) and what I received was some sort of stream-of-consciousness diary entry written during their first harvest. I was intrigued: just WHO were these people?! Everyone is included in the project. That’s just how it’s been and that’s how I’ve come to know them: GOB.

I did finally meet Oriol shortly after this initial exchange of emails. He is a young, tall, handsome Catalan, appropriately disheveled and talking about soil and wines of Burgundy. Anyone who knows me knows that at this point, there was no looking back. I made a pilgrimage to their land to meet the “G” and the “B” of “GOB” and was welcomed into a home full of light and fancy and life. Walking through the woods to the bus stop to pick up young Berta from her school bus, we picked wild asparagus that later accompanied our dinner. It was the kind of experience that, if I were not such a product of the city (she says, as she types in her modest apartment set in an old Basque town, pop. 6000), I would move in with them, tend the garden, take care of the dog, practice yoga on the side of the hill and live out my days working with my hands. I am also realistic and know that I wouldn’t last more than a month out there. But I digress…

Els Jelipins is a project of love and passion of Glòria Garriga and Oriol Illa and la Berta (their shockingly bright and effervescent daughter). There could be no other way to describe it, especially upon meeting them. When you hear them talk about wine, about their garden (all the vegetables they eat come from this garden) and about their life in the hills it just all makes sense. There is no mention of Parker, points, IPT, or even mention of “biodynamic”. They just do what seems to come naturally. There is only a hint of sulfur just before bottling. Obviously, given the 1500-bottle production, they have day jobs. Glòria is an agronomist consultant working out of home and Oriol works in a facility dedicated to the care and transition back into society of people struggling with chemical dependency. Berta is their daughter who goes to school, studies piano and violin and offers impromptu concerts to brighten up the day. She also has a cool teddy bear (yet another winning point in my book).

A brief word on Sumoll: Indgenous red grape variety found in Catalunya that generally yields wines of high alcohol (I suspect this is compounded by the crazy heat of the area), etc. etc. It is not allowed in wines with the DO of Penedés (where the vines are located) and so their wine has been declassified as a Vi de Taula, or Table Wine. Which is just fine by me. FYI, DO Penedés permitted grape varieties include Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Tempranillo, Carignan, Muscat, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay…. Get my drift?
In my two years here, I have only sold two bottles to Spanish guests, so contrary is it to the palate of the average guest who asks for a full-bodied wine or a Parker points wine. The rest have been shared with guests from Australia, Sweden, the United States and France. It is with those who already have some sort of connection with nature – chefs who forage, other natural winemakers, just about anyone who eats food from their garden – who respond to this wine. We probably open at least one bottle per week. With such regularity, I can’t help but notice its evolution.
Els Jelipins is light-ish in body in spite of its 15% alcohol (with all that sun in 2003, it was unavoidable) and earthy and, depending on the lunar phase, either leaning more to ripe red berries or to more leathery, silky, dried berry notes. I am not one to follow the biodynamic calendar, but I do watch my moons. Often I can see it out the window during service. And I am not one to say that there is a better time than others to drink a wine. That’s the beauty of what is a living beverage and not an industrial concoction: just like humans, wines like these express different things at different times. That said, this wine, sipped under the light of the full moon, is one of the sexiest, young wines that I have ever had. Also, with the full moon, decanting is made so easy: the fine sediment remains stuck to the bottle rather than being in suspension and drifting into the decanter. I have just tasted the 2004 (in time for today’s full moon)and it is showing to be a bit more brutish off the start, but after a couple of hours it opens up to the silkiness that I know Jelipins to be. Give it a few more months and I’ll be purring.
Sadly, this wine is not yet available in North America, but it is available retail in various places in Spain and also in Paris (but since I don’t like that store, just come to Spain, I’ll hook you up!). If you get a chance to try it, please do! This IS the future of natural wine in Spain!

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: Joe Manekin talks to importer Jose Pastor about the future of Spanish wine; or: Old world?

Day 16: Sulfur

Why even try and talk about something scientific when you can get a PhD. from MIT to do it for you. Bay area chemist and Burgundy devotee Arjun Mendiratta gets technical with one of the most mysterious parts of any wine bottle, “contains sulfites” (what in god’s name are sulfites? and what do they have to do with natural wine? Well, keep reading…)

We hear a lot about sulfur in the context of wine. Some wines have too much sulfur, some wines have too little; sometimes the sulfur ‘blows off;’ sometimes your friend gets a headache from the sulfites; it was wet at harvest, so the winemaker added sulfur to the must; I was hungry, so I ordered a large sulfur with pepperoni and onions. It can be hard to know what to believe…

Part I: Prerequisites

As the official chemist of “₃1 days…,” I am here to demystify sulfur for you. However, before we begin, we need to review the difference between elements and molecules. (Yes, I know you hated chemistry in high school.) Sulfur is an element. The thing about elements is, they don’t really exist. They’re a bit like Platonic ideals. What do exist are molecules, which are made up of one or more elements. So when someone says “This smells like sulfur,” what they really mean is, “This smells like a sulfur-containing molecule.” Why is this important? Well, there are thousands of sulfur-containing molecules and they’re all different. Some of the smell like shit (literally), some of them smell like garlic, some of them smell like a freshly lit match, and some of them don’t smell at all. So which ones are which?

Part II: Bad Actors

SO₂: This is the big one, the one everybody talks about, at once superhero and super-villain. First, the super-hero. SO₂ can protect wine (and must) from oxidation. It does this through what I will call a “me-first” mechanism. The mechanism is very simple:

Evil oxygen enters your wine, due perhaps to a faulty cork or a sloppy winemaker. It looks around for a victim, eyeing your wine’s vital flavor compounds.
A plucky SO₂ molecule jumps forward and says “Me first!” The SO₂ and oxygen molecules rip each others clothing off and hungrily devour each other. Meanwhile, the rest of your wine remains intact. Disaster averted.
SO₂ also interferes with the action of certain enzymes that cause wine to turn brown thereby helping to maintain color. Finally, SO₂ is an antimicrobial, which is to say that it kills bacteria, molds, and yeasts. Yeasts, you say? Don’t we need those? Well, we need one of them, specifically saccharomyces cerevisiae, and that one just so happens to be resistant to SO₂. Thus, SO₂ is often used at crush to prevent any other yeasts from taking hold. (Where do you think Monsanto got the idea for Roundup Ready™ soybeans?)

As mentioned, however, there is a dark side; actually, there are several. The first, and easiest to understand, is the fact that SO₂ smells like burnt match, and so if you add too much of it to your wine, your wine will smell like burnt match, and nobody wants that. (”Burnt match,” by the way, is more than just a metaphor. There’s a bit of sulfur on the tip of your match and when it burns, it combines with oxygen in the air to make SO₂. Et voila! Burnt match.) Second, SO₂ can combine with certain flavor compounds present in wine and make them, well, no longer flavorful. Thirdly, SO₂ reduces the microbial complexity of fermenting wine, and there are those who believe that microbial complexity is directly related to flavor complexity. Finally, yours truly has collected unequivocal empirical evidence that some wines made with little or no SO₂ are unusually fresh, vital, and delicious (cf. Lapierre, Breton, Tissot…). It is for these reasons that many of those lunatic moon-worshippers known as natural winemakers will choose to use as little SO₂ as possible in their winemaking. I should add that even wines to which no SO₂ has been added will nonetheless contain just a little, as SO₂ is naturally produced during fermentation.

Finally, a technical note. You can skip this part, but you’ll hurt my feelings. SO₂ is a colorless gas with the aforementioned odor of burnt match. When it is dissolved in water (and wine is 85% water), a small portion of it remains as SO₂, but much of it reacts with water to form a mixture of sulfite, SO₃²-. and bisulfite HSO₃-. Because no one likes dealing with smelly gases, winemakers do not work with SO₂ per se but rather KHSO₃, potassium bisulfite, which is an easy-to-handle white powder. It dissolves in water to produce bisulfite ion, just like SO₂, so the effect is the same. This is the reason why the terms SO₂ and sulfites are often used interchangeably, even though they technically refer to different chemical species.

H₂S:

This is hydrogen sulfide, aka rotten eggs. It is also present in your farts. In fact, it is also present in yeasts farts, which is how it gets into your wine. For this reason, most fermenting wine smells like rotten eggs at one point or another. This is usually not a problem because H₂S is volatile. This doesn’t mean that it has a bad temper, just that it evaporates quickly. If a winemaker is concerned about high levels of H₂S in a particular barrel, she may decide to rack the wine, i.e. transfer it from one barrel to another, in the hopes that the ensuing splashing will help get rid of the H₂S. This is a lot like shaking a bottle of Coke to get the fizz out. (Not that any of us drink Coke, of course…)

If H₂S sticks around, however, it can turn into sulfides and mercaptans, which is when things get really ugly.

Sulfides and Mercaptans:

It’s not too much of a simplification to say that sulfides and mercaptans are simply heavier cousins of H₂S. Because they are heavier, they are less volatile, and thus harder to get rid of. Like all of the compounds we have been discussing, they stink. However, they all stink in different ways, and, sometimes they even stink pleasantly. For example, the smell of freshly cut grapefruit is due to 1-p-menthene-8-thiol, aka Grapefruit Mercaptan. Some of the characteristic flavor of grilled and smoked meat is also due to mercaptans. And finally, the poster child for a benevolent sulfur, garlic is packed to the gills with all manner of delicious-smelling mercaptans, sulfides, and other sulfur-containing compounds.

An important characteristic of this class of compounds is its exceedingly low odor threshold (odor threshold is the lowest concentration at which you can still smell the compound). As an example, the aforementioned grapefruit mercaptan has an odor threshold of 0.1 parts per trillion, which is to say a little goes a long, long, long way. Another, somewhat related, issue is that these compounds can be perceived by your nose (and brain) very differently at different concentrations. What can be a pleasing, savory nuance at low concentrations can be positively revolting at higher concentrations. Anyone who’s ever driven through Gilroy will know exactly what I’m talking about.

As it is with food, so it is with wine. Sulfides and mercaptans are an intrinsic part of the flavor of many, many wines. (Here is a paper on the importance of dimethyl sulfide to the flavor of Grenache and Syrah from the Rhone Valley.) However, when present in excess, they can impart an overpowering odor akin to cooked cabbage. It has become acceptable in wine circles to call this flaw reduction, although this usage makes most chemists cringe.

Part III: Thoughts

Sulfur gets a bad rap. If you take one thing from this post, I hope it is that there are thousands of sulfur-containing molecules and some of them are delicious. Of course, some of you will want to know where I stand on SO₂. To be honest, I have no desire to play backseat winemaker or to tell anyone what they should drink. Speaking only for myself, I have had several low-to-no SO₂ wines that have been almost shockingly alive and delicious, and I am grateful for those experiences. I have also had several that have been downright nasty. At the end of the day, litmus tests are for justices, not for wine…

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: Sommelier Linda Violago talks the past present and future of Spanish wine; or: I needed another reason to use this picture:

Day 15: The Fresh Wines of Kevin Kelley

Of all the monuments to the fermented juice of vitis-vinifera in California, few have the tremendous ugliness that the warehouse space that houses Kevin Kelley’s Salinia Wine Company. For anyone else this is not a destination winery. There is no grand cellar, no architectural excess masquerading as a tasting room, no bio-dynamic walking tour. And that is ok. Because what Kevin is doing inside this building might represent the future of California wine, or at least some part of it.

Kevin, a graduate of UC Davis (he laughed when i jokingly reffered to his alma mater as the bête-noire of the natural wine movement) and a winemaker who has built up his reputation working with various vineyards and wineries around the Sonoma area. He is part of a growing number of winemakers that have become disenchanted by the precepts of international style winemaking, heavy oak, extraction, innoculated yeasts, too much fruit etc. (Wells Guthrie of Copain, whom Kevin worked for, is another that has begun to make wines of a lighter quality.) As Kevin saw it, what has been missing in America was any type of “fresh wine” or wine that is bottled and meant to be consumed young, often straight from the barrel or tank and into whatever container is available (check out Tracie B’s post on fresh Italian wines HERE).

So when Kevin found a few vineyards that he felt were suitable for this type of thing he conceived the Natural Process Alliance, his project for fresh, natural, sustainable wines. To this end he hooked up with Klean Kanteen out of Chico California for completely re-useable bottles so nothing was wasted in the process and started work on a skin fermented Chardonnay and a Pinot Gris and has plans to add Picpoul, Grenache, and a true to life California Pinot Blanc (he tells me most Pinot Blanc is mis-identified here). This is an idea anathema to many Americans, who tend to think of wine as a serious, aged, and complex drink, which is partly where the stigma against wine comes from.

Kevin himself is warm and engaging and genuinely excited about his wines and the possibilities of where they could go. We talked for about three hours on all manner of things, from bio-dynamics (Kevin thinks like me on this, if the practices used are making your vineyards healthier and your wines better, go with it, but certification can hamstring people) to the ridiculous economics of owning vineyards in California (not yet for him, but sometime soon).

The idea behind the wines is simple. Don’t fuck (my term) with it unless it tells you to. No sulfur or anything of the type until absolutely neccessary, not as a preventitive measure and certainly not in order to shoot for a target otherwise unnattainable (when i arrived he had just finished an extremely light sulfur treatment on the Pinot Gris after he felt oxidation would become an issue otherwise, the chardonnay was still unsulfured). The wine itself is only available by the glass and sold within one-hundred miles of the winery so that Kevin can control the shipping as well as keep with his local philosphy.

So how is the wine? Given the hands off techniques and minimal intervention used both wines were remarkably clean and precise. The pinot gris, coming from Windsor Oaks Vineyards was a tight, acidic, mineral piece. This is food wine exemplified (we even proved it by eating sandwiches with it), subdued but not fat, balanced on the razors edge of rocks and fruit (thanks Lyle). The chardonnay is an entirely different animal from what you think of california chardonnay. Skin macerated for the entire fermentation and full of a some spiced meyer lemon feel and free of any of the requisite heaviness that comes along with oak or too much alcohol. To taste it is to realize that what we think of california chard is just as much a product of technique as anything else, and it doesn’t speak to California as much as it does to the style favored by much of our state’s vignerons. The wine itself was as ugly looking as the building, cloudy unfiltered with bits of stuff floating in it. But to taste it is to taste a small scale revolution. Tasting it is like tasting something different. Burgundian? No. International? No. So what then? The future?

One can hope.

Note: I tasted a number of Kevin’s other wines besides the NPA. I was going to include them, but space and time constraints made it impossible, so stay tuned for a full report after the month is done. Also, due to the holiday and an unforeseen event i will be taking two days off and depositing them at the end of the month. So next post is on the 6th of July.

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: Arjun Mendiratta talks sulfur; or: British Arjun Mendiratta talks sulphur.

Day 14.2: Bonny Doon Sends saignée Their Current Releases

The authors of this post are the authors of saignée and rank wine amateurs as well.

It is a given that the best way to get noticed is to do something poorly.

About two months ago i wrote what was essentially a joke post on wine blogging ethics in response to the mostly manufactured ridiculousness of the whole Robert Parker/Wine Advocate “scandal” or whatever the fuck it was. So naturally, given the universe’s tendency to punish the lazy, a few weeks later i received an e-mail from the PR department of a winery wondering if i would like to receive a sample for the blog. Now i don’t have any qualms about receiving samples to review, but i will put down a few serious points:

1. saignee doesn’t do scores or thumbs or stars.
2. i personally don’t believe in objectivity in aesthetic judgement.
3. It must be said that i do, however, believe in expertise in casting aesthetic judgment, but i don’t claim any sort of expertise because i honestly am just learning myself. i have neither the knowledge that comes with a lifetime of dedicated tasting, nor the knowledge and expertise of a true professional.
4. If a wine is a review sample from a producer/importer etc. i will be upfront about it. i will never solicit samples from anyone, nor do we have ads or any receive any kind of compensation.
5. Guilhaume Gerard has bought me dinner before.

I was going to post this much earlier but i figured, hey, it fits with this month’s program and like it or not, Randall Grahm is going to be a spokesman for natural wine in America given his status in the industry.

Located nearby in the Santa Cruz Mountains Randall Grahm, wine-maker for Bonny Doon, has been a lot of things in the world of California wine. Pioneer of Rhone varieties, early proponent of micro-ox, marketer par-excellence, mass market wine producer, eccentric, and as of late, outspoken advocate for natural wine-making, from biodynamics to dry farming. He has approached his new found passion with all the zeal of the newly converted and will talk to anyone who will listen, from the Times to Oprah. What we received in the mail was the start of what (Grahm has only been going natural for a few years) i hope is an ongoing dialogue that Bonny Doon is having with all aspects of winemaking, from farming to cellaring. Randall isn’t working from tradition, per-say, since he is essentially starting anew in the process, but if he sticks with it and really learns there may not be a better person to help figure this all out.

i drank these wines on two separate nights, the first time with a larger group that included co-blogger Chris Osborn, and the second time with just my wife and i (Chris’ notes go first, with mine following, but honestly both notes came from a conversational atmosphere, rather than a clinical setting so you may as well consider the whole thing a group note.) i honestly haven’t the faintest clue how to write a post where i take it deadly serious, so if this post come across as bad, or boring, let me know.

2007 Bonny Doon Le Cigare Blanc

Smelled like mineral, lemon rind, honey, and something else unreadable on my hand-written notes. Continues on the palette with similar citrus, but also bringing bitter herbs and an elusive buttery aspect (elusive as I’m vegan and my Butter Sensor is a bit out of whack). Some low acid binds the whole thing, but not really in a good way. Overall, this wine feels too big for a white, even into slimy territory that I associate with Viognier, despite this blend being Roussane/Grenache Blanc. The table just wasn’t feeling this one, even though it wasn’t especially bad. It’s a shame though, cause I really loved the 2006 which I remember to be cleaner and lighter. The 2007 did have a nice epilogue though when I finished it at dinner the next evening with a salad. Yeah.

This wine was definitely a rousanne, with that strong perfumed aromatic expression coming through. I can’t help to think that this would have been that much nicer if it hadn’t been the bruiser that it was. It just kind of sits there after the glass is done, but not in that delicate thoughtful way, but rather an uninvited guests who manages to spill a bag of greasy chips on your couch and won’t leave despite the night clearly being over.

2008 Bonny Doon Vin de Gris

The whole table was digging the strawberry and lime nose, when our friend John rudely said it was more like grapefruit, thus ruining our olfactory fun as then we could only smell fucking grapefruit. Cory was quick to chastise John and got him to fall in line. Onward, the wine tasted of fucking grapefruit but with a welcome spicy twist. It finished super-dry with a distinctly odd medicinal finish. Now we’re onto something. We all kept coming back to this one, and I pronounced it a “Good Wine For When You’re Sweaty” just in time for Summer.

Cold snapped wine that was definitely made to take a chill on it. Crisp is the word to describe this wine. Some light, oh so light, spice like pepper on cold limes on maybe a bed of barely there violets. Lighter than the alcohol content would suggest. Without a doubt the wine of the night and the only one that didn’t last till the morning.

2005 Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant

The first unfiltered offering for this venerable line of Doon wines. I’ve had just as many bad experiences as good with this wine in the past, so I was very curious how the new 2005 would turn out. Answer: sucky. The nose had a few nice barnyard, earthy things going on, but was marred by an overwhelming blast of alcohol. This is very weird, as the Cigare Volant had the lowest alcohol of the three at 13.5%. Anyways, onto tasting, this one could easily be confused with a Cabernet Sauvignon: all tannic black fruit. Kinda boring, but not bad. However, the finish was down-right nasty: rotten prunes. And normally, I love a long finish, but when the finish is prune-y… not so much. Of course, this is brand-new release, and the Cigs are meant to age, so we’ll see what time brings (or not).

Meat, blueberries and smoke up front with cracked leather and some heavy dirt and wood in the middle. This wine smacks you with an uncomfortably heavy grappa heat at the back of the throat. i couldn’t find anything wrong with this wine, nor could any of us, it was just wildly unbalanced. Definitely not my kind of wine.

2008 Ca Del Solo Muscat

Heavy hot banana soap. Maybe i just went in associating muscat with lightness, but this went down with a heavy thud at first, much like the rousanne. Interstingly enough when it warmed up some and had about an hour to open up did it start to show some acid and lose some of its fleshy overtones. i still didn’t care for the wine, but at least it was getting interesting.

2008 Ca Del Solo Albarino

i’m not even sure i should be reviewing this wine. i don’t like the heavy, overly serious, modern, perfumed, hot Albariños coming from Spain and this definitely isn’t any different. Honestly though, if those types of Albariños are your thing, there isn’t anything to stop me from telling you to buy this wine, since there isn’t anything wrong with it. It just isn’t my thing. (How’s that for lazy critical bet-hedging, fuck me).

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: Kevin Kelley and his fresh wine experiment; or: Kevin Kelley must be sick of his name and “experiment” in the same sentence.

Day 14.1: Why I Swallowed the Kool-Aid on Organic Wine

Double dose today, the interest was greater than my capacity for scheduling and Amy managed to sneak in after the deadline, but the more the merrier.
Amy Atwood comes to us from MyDailyWine where she gets into organic and biodynamic wines every few days, which is better for the liver i suppose.

When I first got into the wine business in 1996, there wasn’t much talk about organic wine, much less the natural wine movement. Domestic U.S. wines that were labeled organic were mostly poor quality and rightfully relegated to a dusty lower shelf for the aging granola gang.
Of course, multitudes of European wineries have farmed without chemicals and/or biodynamically for decades if not centuries but nobody talked about it much.

Organic wines are needlessly confusing in the U.S. due to the USDA’s regulations. They insist that there may be no added sulfites for a wine to be labeled ‘organic wine’. If there are added sulfites, then the wine is labeled ‘made with organic grapes’.
This is not true in many other countries including all of Europe, where a wine is called organic if it is made from organic grapes.

I am defiant and ignore the arbitrary USDA definitions. When I write abut organic wines, I include all wines that are made with chemical free grapes, of course including biodynamic and even non-certified but practicing organic vineyards.

I will not delve deeply into the no added sulfite discussion here but I have many times on my blog, MyDailyWine, where I focus on organic, sustainable and biodynamic wines.

But a mighty shift has occurred in the wine industry and amongst wine lovers during the past few years.
Organic wines got good! I say this tongue in cheek because of course there have always been delicious organic wines.

It mirrors the shift that has occurred for organic produce.
Do any of you remember when the only organic lettuce you could find was expensive and riddled with gaping holes?
Now even discount chain groceries carry a wide selection of high quality and affordable organic produce.

I believe the above point is more key to organic wine’s growth than most industry insiders awknowledge.
Once families decide that they no longer want to eat fruits and vegetables that have been sprayed with toxic chemicals, it doesn’t take long for the smart ones to realize that wine grapes aren’t much different and that wine is a natural product.

And suddenly the European wineries started talking about their biodynamic and organic practices openly.
And dozens, now hundreds, of U.S. wineries started to produce wines made from organic grapes.

Some of my colleagues in the wine industry, specifically those that dominate the natural wine movement, can be a bit more strident in their tone and certainly more exclusive in which wines they champion.

I applaud all their efforts but my mission is to take organic/biodynamic wine to the people. Inclusive and welcoming and delicious. And for most people that doorway will not be a $23.99 Cab Franc from the Loire.

Their epiphany wine will more likely be a Benziger or Quivira wine. And thats okay. Personal style may differ but regardless, many U.S. wineries are headed in an exciting direction. Free of toxic chemicals and the resulting harmful runoff into our waterways and ground soil. Many U.S. wineries are also starting to take a very serious look at their excessive alcohol levels.

I recently was asked by a wine consumer if I could taste the difference between wines made from organic grapes and those made with chemically farmed grapes.
That could make for a very complicated answer but I kept it simple.
I said next time you are at the store, buy one chemically sprayed apple and one organic apple. Taste them both and take notes. Then do the same with exercise with two bootles of wine, one made from organic grapes and one with non-organic.

There’s your answer. And mine.

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: Kevin Kelley and his fresh wine experiment; or: Kevin Kelley must be sick of his name and “experiment” in the same sentence.

Day 13: An Appreciation of Mountain Barolo

Bay Area wine geek extraordinaire Slaton Lipscomb dips into one of the best wines I have ever had the privilege of trying. In his book Reflections of a Wine Merchant importer Neal Rosenthal states that if he could only drink one wine the rest of his life, it would be Luigi Ferrando’s Carema. Pretty heady stuff coming from someone like him. Enjoy!

The conventional wisdom is that nebbiolo finds its greatest expression in the vineyards of the sprawling Langhe hills, in the south of Piedmont. And as far as I’m concerned, let’s chalk one up for convential wisdom. Who would deny that the ridges and slopes that make up the various communes of the Barolo and Barbaresco DOCGs, with their excellent sun exposition and lingering autumn fog, offer a uniquely ideal environment for coddling the notoriously difficult and late-ripening nebbiolo grape?

But nebbiolo is indeed grown successfully elsewhere in Piedmont. And while nebbiolo-based wines from outside the Langhe may not typically challenge Barolo and Barbaresco for the crown, they do deserve to be more well-known by winegeeks and professionals.

Starting next door, there is fine quality nebbiolo grown in the neigboring Monferrato and Roero hills, although the sites are mostly sandier and tend to produce lighter wines without the intensity or structure of better wines from Barolo and Barbaresco.

But nestled among the northern lakes and high-altitude foothills of the Alps, there are fine higher-altitude microclimates for growing nebbiolo in the north of Piedmont. Among others, Gattinara, Ghemme, Lessona and Boca have all been awarded DOCG or DOC status for their nebbiolo based wines, and the best producers from these areas make beautifully aromatic, earthy, often mineral-driven examples of nebbiolo, here called spanna, sometimes with smaller percentages of other local grape varieties blended in.

One of the most unique of these areas is the tiny DOC of Carema in the Canavese, among the alpine foothills in the shadow of Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc). This is the last stop on the A5 superstrada before leaving Piedmont for the Valle d’Aosta, and the subalpine terrain is beautiful. Just 16 hectares of grapevines are cultivated here, much of it pergola-trained on terraces carved into the steep hillsides.

Ferrando Vini is usually acknowledged as the only independent producer in Carema, although a local cooperative also produces a bottled wine that is occasionally seen outside the region. Founded in 1890, the winery is still in family hands, with current operations overseen by Luigi Ferrando and his sons Roberto and Andrea. Ferrando produces his flagship Etichetta Bianca (White Label) Carema from family-owned vineyards plus several vineyards under long-term contract.

These are traditionally cultivated, steeply terraced vineyards. Many are trained onto pergola-like trellises called tipiunto maximize sun exposure. While there are elements of natural and minimum intervention viticulture and winemaking practiced here, they aren’t certified organic or biodynamic. It admittedly gets a bit grey when you’ve been growing grapes in the mountains for over a hundred years.

One of my favorite passages from American importer Neal Rosenthal’s autobiography describes an afternoon spent alone in the mountains above Carema searching for Giuseppe Clerino, aka “Ping”, the owner of some of the most important vineyard parcels going into Ferrando’s Carema wine. Ping and his wife turn out to be true mountain folk who spend the summer grazing cattle in the mountains, only venturing down from time to time to check on the vineyards located below the treeline.

Not surprisingly Neal ends up drinking Ping’s grappa the rest of the afternoon, in various herbal, fruit and honey-infused flavors all distilled and blended by the Clerinos.

At Ferrando, the grapes are all harvested by hand, usually in the 3rd or 4th week of October, and fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats. Per the DOC, the wine sees 36 months of aging prior to release, 30 months of which is spent in large oak barrels, and 6 in bottle. In the best vintages, a reserve called the Etichetta Nera (Black Label) Carema is bottled. Typically this bottling includes juice blended from the best siteswithin the highest altitude vineyards Silanc and Siei. It is raised a little differently, spending two years in barrique (yes, some new) and one in larger barrels. While I’ve not personally tasted the Etichetta Nera, it is typically described as showing more richness and density compared to the Bianca.

The Ferrandos utilize a relatively brief maceration on the skins compared to what is commonly practiced in the Langhe, about ten days. Macerations of 25 to 35, 45, even 60 days aren’t uncommon for the most traditional producers in Barolo. Despite the shorter skin contact, Ferrando Carema is a concentrated and structured, ageworthy wine, although the tannins tend to be softer and less astringent even in youth compared to its cousins from the Langhe. According to Rosenthal in a good vintage Ferrando Carema can develop for ten, fifteen, even twenty or more years. (I’ve not drank a bottle this old, but I do have a few stashedaway to try down the road.)

1999 Etichetta Bianca

Medium garnet in color, lightening at the rim. Complex, surprisingly mature aromas of mushroom, beef bouillon, soy, blood, game, soft red fruits, vitamin. This has a delightfully light palate presence, with soft red fruits, menthol, wood spice, and savory animale flavors. There’s fine, well-integrated acidity and an intensely concentrated strawberry-liquor like midpalate. Surprisingly, the tannins are nearly resolved. Ready to drink, but alas most likely not a representative bottle – the cork is streaked 2/3 of the way up, so some exposure to heat seems to have occured along the journey.

2004 Etichetta Bianca

Initially a faint but multifaceted nose, with floral, root beer, and tamarind notes, plus brooding dark fruits. Tight palate, with more stand-offish acidity than the 1999 and surprisingly fine if rather firm tannins. On the following day this has opened up notably and now offers complex, somewhat brooding aromas of sour cherry, dried strawberry, mushroom and raw beef. Punchy, tart acidity cuts nicely through rich, pure darker nebbiolo fruit tones. The tannis are still firm but now more well-integrated. Still a bit disjointed, but this should knit itself together admirably in time. Hold for now.

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

Up next: The wines of Bonny Doon; or: saignée puts ethics to the test

Day 12: Fear and Loathing in the Natural Wine Revolution

Robert Camuto has been an award winning author and journalist for some 25 years, and has written for just about everybody at some time or another. His book, Corkscrewed: Adventures in the new French Wine Country is a fantastic snapshot of what is going in with a small band of like minded French vignerons. It is an unpretentious journey written by a man who stands apart from the know-it-alls and hacks that dominate wine writing (nobody here of course, excepting myself).

Sticking my nose into the natural wine world these days, I’m getting a big whiff of essence of dogma, aromas of Parker-esque certitude and attitudinal notes of ….Could that be arrogance?
It was bound to happen. Natural wines are now trendy, and like all fashion they are developing a cadre of self-appointed police with about as much flexibility and appreciation for nuance as the Iranian Governing Council.
I am not a wine critic, but a writer intensely interested in wine and the people who persist in making beautiful and honest things from the land in the 21st century. When I moved to France at the beginning of this decade I fell in love with the freewheeling diversity of so many good small production wines emerging from so many places. (Cotes-du-marmandais anyone?) The term vins naturels didn’t come with orthodoxy– just the understanding that the vigneron respected the environment and limited the use of technology in the winery. This is France, after all, where pleasure comes first and religion is way down the list.
But in the last few years since natural wine scene has made the leap to U.S., the line has hardened. It’s not enough just to enjoy the wine anymore. There is more pressure to define, limit, and label them, to designate stars and turn them into some sort of alternative lifestyle brand presided over by their very own Mullahs.
Yeccccccccccccccch!
How did it happen? It seems we Americans can’t help it. We’ve been so marketed to, we HAVE TO define ourselves by the stuff we consume. Of course, today’s electronic shorthand doesn’t help. You’re not going to get much nuance in a Twitter tweet.
I’ll state the obvious: The move to natural winemaking was not started by bloggers. It began among winemakers with the shift to quality wines a couple of decades ago – and was aided by some passionate importers and retailers. It was a reaction to lots of things: decades of terroir–killing industrial viticulture, European policies that favored quantity over quality, and a glut of international style wines.
To me wine at its highest level is an expression of terroir, nourishment, omnivorous pleasure, experimentation and something scarce in the nnanh-nnanhing classes: humility. Here are some of the misconceptions and buzzwords abused by the more shrill ranks of the Revolutionary Guard.

Manipulation

As in wine should not be manipulated. Of course winemaking should be kept simple. But wine itself is a manipulation that started with the selection of grapes, grafting, etc. The natural product of grapes is… vinegar.
A perfect example is malolactic fermentation. This natural secondary fermentation which converts malic acid to softer lactic acid was never really understood until the modern era. It is now considered essential for reds but not necessarily whites or rosés. In high acid areas like Burgundy it’s great in whites. But in the low-acid south—allowing m.f. to happen makes for flabby, dumb whites. Even natural winemakers “manip” low-acid whites (with sterile filtering or sulfur) to block m.f.

Technology

As in all tech is bad. Yes, wine should be made of grapes, and not an OZ-ified, reverse-osmosified cola. BUT most of southern Europe would not produce fine wines without one very significant technology: refrigeration. Temperature control allows for fermentation and maturation of wines while preserving flavors and aromas. I live in Provence and I drink rosé in summer: made and served thanks to refrigeration. Speaking of which, last time I looked, most city dwellers kept their wines alive—especially unsulfured ones—with that same technology.

Organic or Biodynamic

As in anything else is bad. Organic and Biodynamic farming are not only good for the planet but make fantastic wines that express and even scream terroir. But rigid labels and certifications? To what end? If a winegrower uses environmental methods, why should he spend the time and money to get a stamp of approval? In my experience, the best winemakers are those who follow their own conscience and instincts—not administrative regulations or bodies like the USDA.
A sticky example: There are some meticulous sustainable wine producers who in the midst of a severe once-in-a-decade mildew outbreak, prefer to use a
little (non-organic) antibiotic to using a lot of (organic) sulfur which kills insect and bacterial life in the soil.

Sulfur

As in the sulfites monster. Sulfur in some form has been used for thousands of years as a preservative and is present in all wines as a product of fermentation. Sulfur dioxide should not be overused—but only bad winemakers do that anyway. No-added-sulfur wines can be beautiful and they can also be unstable. To make no-added sulfur an orthodoxy is ridiculous.

Tradition

As in “all wines were better” before modern winemaking. Excuse me but how many great Italian wines were there really in 1960? In 1980? Natural whiners wrap themselves in the traditions of Burgundy—a place that’s had a great wine tradition for most of a millennium. Being a traditionalist in Burgundy is–as one old-grizzled Texas editor of mine would have said—“easy, like being a liberal in Greenwich Village.” Refined wines—the kind that stretch the vocabulary of wine writers—simply did not exist in most of Europe.

Revolution

As in “You say you want a…” There is a misconception going around that not long ago everyone made wines by adding phony yeasts. Simply not true. This is simply not true. Good winemakers never added yeast. In fact, Emile Peynaud (1912-2004), the enologist considered the father of modern winemaking, wrote of creating the conditions for the natural yeasts to do their thing.

Parker

As in, THE DEVIL . I am not a fan of Robert Parker’s approach on many levels. It’s true the man has championed some bombastic “Parkerized” wines and given high marks to some crappy ones. But give the devil his due: Parker was lauding natural wines long before the term made it to America. In the 90s the Wine Advocate gave outstanding marks to the likes of Marcel LaPierre, Dom. Leon Barral, Dom. Richeaume and Coulée de Serrant. Personally I don’t care what Robert Parker writes. But to take the position that if Parker likes it, it sucks, or to say that the world needs saving from Parker’s opinions is, frankly, more than just a stretch of the truth.

Why am I writing this? I love un-pimped wines that reflect their place and vintage, and I don’t want to see them limited to a ghetto of Parisian Bobos (bohemian bourgeois) and international hipsters. Going fundamentalist will only turn off the next generation and push them towards the next thing. Like martinis.

(Note: Robert wants to know if anyone can guess the wine above. I do as well because he hasn’t told me yet.)

Follow day by day here: http://saignee.wordpress.com/31-days-of-natural-wine/

saignée note: Hey you, buy Robert Camuto’s book: http://www.amazon.com/Corkscrewed-Adventures-French-Country-Table/dp/0803276354 (and not a used copy)

Next Up: Slaton on Carema; or Did somebody say bees?