From Dry January to the Wisdom of Natural Wine hile multiple lockdowns pushed a fair few of us towards the brink of alcoholism (one in five of us, according to Drinkaware), pandemics aside, January has for a long time been the established month in which to ditch the booze for a brief (or extended) while. At Christmas we all over-indulge (save for those who are teetotal, of course) and our livers start getting nervous, pulling on the safety cord for a little time out, a rest from tilting a glass filled with hops or grapes from the vine. So it is that Dry January exists, run by Alcohol Change UK, who work to make sure people know the facts about their favourite poison (quite literally), and how it’s the leading cause of death, ill-health, and disability for people aged between 15 and 49 in the UK.
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Yet, when February comes round, don’t just revert to the same habits you had before. In addition to a general trend to better care for oneself, eat healthily and exercise, these are also ecologically awoken days, too. Therefore, consider a “cleaner” way of drinking: think natural wine. Still a “magical world”, that niche of 100% grape juice from an organic vineyard undergoing fermented witchery and wonder is “rapidly expanding” in popularity, as recently reported by The Chalkboard Magazine. The premise is that the grapes themselves have everything a winemaker could want and need: they contain the water and sugars, the vitamins and enzymes, even the yeast and bacteria. Crush the grapes and they will ferment – as long as intervention by the vigneron is minimal, then it’s natural wine. And who would want to pass up on the resveratrol antioxidant benefits of red wine, eh? Taste-wise, there isn’t too much difference (barring the missing razor blade metallic tang you might get an aftertaste of from commercial Continental vineyards). Most natural winemakers don’t use
sulphites out of principle, but some use a minimal amount. In general, though, the fewer the sulphites, the less likely you are to have a hangover (consideration of volume consumed always helps, of course). Nonetheless, visually a natural wine looks, well, a bit more natural: cloudy, with the presence of sediment. These are necessarily earthy wines. If you’re patient, you can filter off the sediment; if you’re not, then how much of an issue is haziness after you’ve imbibed a couple of glasses anyway? It pays, also, to have a little faith in the taste of natural wine. Like an artisanal cheese, natural wine will surprise and be different to what one is used to as poured from the conventional bottle. It has been suggested that those new to natural wine should think with “their stomach, gut, reactions and instincts, rather than with their heads”. Don’t compare that first sip with run-of-the-mill chardonnay or cheap and cheerful pinot grigio. Indeed, natural wine is thought to age better than commercial wines, as well. Prep your cellars… Or at least a cool storage area, in this space-at-a-premium age we live in.
