UNFILTERED AND FINE

By Andrea Eby, DipWSET, Sommelier, IWS, CSW

Photo by Ian McCausland

We live a filtered life. From our online personas, to our water, to our wine, we are a culture obsessed with removing impurities and imperfections. A quick search of mobile apps alone reveals hundreds of tools designed to blur away our imperfections, giving us bigger eyes and smaller noses. A civilization far in the future discovering a cache of such photos would think we lived in a time of godlike good looks. But what if we removed the filters from our lives and began to reassert our authenticity? This quest for authenticity has inspired a new generation of winemakers to return to the roots of winemaking and begin to redefine what real wine is.

The Roots

Many of the original “natural” winemakers are traditional winemakers that inherited vineyards from their parents. The story of their conversion into cultural revolutionary is often similar. Many left their rural roots for prestigious professions in European cities. Returning home in search of a more authentic life (or obliged to due to familial obligations), many found the idyllic landscapes of their youth eerily lifeless: their parents’ generation had whole-heartedly embraced the advances of the agro-chemical industry in the 1960s–1980s, stripping the land of much of its regional personality.

And why not? Before the advent of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, viticulture was backbreaking work, with most farmers making just enough to get by. Horses were replaced with tractors and farms became monocultures. The increases in yields and decreases in work that these chemicals created were seen as the answer to all their problems. Fast forward 20–40 years, and the costs of these advancements were all too obvious. Gone were the diverse ecosystems that once thrived, replaced by row upon row of vines, separated by strips of barren soil. The vineyards were devoid of insects, birds and wildlife, and the soils were woefully lacking in life as well. All of these factors led to increased disease pressure, which led to more spraying, which led to weaker vines, which led to more disease pressure. A never ending cycle.

This lifelessness had even extended to the microorganisms in the soil and on the grapes. The native yeasts that had once thrived in these vineyards were gone and many farmers had to turn to commercial yeasts to start their fermentations. As native yeasts (translators of terroir) were replaced with industrially produced versions, wines began to taste the same. Gone were the nuances of one plot versus another. Depending on the yeast you chose to use, all your wines could taste like mass-produced “Two Buck Chuck.”

The new generation of winemakers realized that this system was not sustainable. They reacted by forsaking the tenets of industrial agriculture and turned back to nature. They planted trees, reintroduced horses to the vineyards, allowed weeds to grow and ecosystems to re-establish themselves. These decisions came at a cost. Yields decreased and wine styles changed.

Realizing early on that conventional journalists and critics would neither understand this new generation of winemakers’ intentions nor endorse their wines, they began to develop a parallel marketplace that would sustain their way of winemaking. And it worked. In cities such as Paris, there were fewer than five retail establishments selling natural wines in 2004; today, there are nearly 500. The natural wine movement has become a cultural movement that not only embodies environmental, aesthetic, social and political ideals, but also ethical wine.

The Style

“Real” wines is a rather ambiguous term, but so too is “natural” wine. There is no official definition of what gets your wine into this exclusive club, and most of the makers of such wines want to keep it that way. By defining the term, you remove much of the poetic realism that attracts people to this way of winemaking and living. Despite the lack of hard and fast rules, there are some unwritten laws that nearly all the qualifying wines adhere to. Some of the non-negotiables include: organic or biodynamic farming, no additions or subtractions in the cellar, no chemical additions in the vineyard or the winery, no commercial yeasts, nor fining or sterile filtration. Producers tend to hold slightly more wideranging opinions regarding the use of sulphur dioxide, with some eschewing its use completely and others using small amounts (usually far below the legal limits) in order to help their wines survive the challenging environments they encounter during shipping and storage.

Describing wines made with benevolent neglect is often difficult. There is no one descriptor that defines the style. The wines are as varied as their winemakers and the winemaking choices that are made, or not made, along the way. Disciples of the style would say that this new way of making wines is actually as old as winemaking itself and that the majority of the wines seem to have a vitality and life-force that conventional wines simply do not possess. They are seldom heavy, rich or high in alcohol, often valuing drinkability over power. Some are light and juicy, often referred to as “glou glou” or “quaffable.” Some are funkier, with interesting flavours of cider, savouriness and sometimes a salty, mineral finish. Most are unfiltered and unfined and therefore will often appear cloudier than commercially produced wines. The winemakers would argue that fining and filtering remove essential textural and flavour components from the wine and therefore they choose to avoid these steps. The flavours may not be for everyone, but they do give you a glimpse of what wine tastes like free of the chemical additions that characterize many of today’s industrial wines.

Many people find themselves drawn to the world of natural wines as much by the ideology that the movement embodies as the wines themselves. Some find the flavours challenging initially, some fall head over heels in love with the first sip. Many that are initially challenged by the unfamiliar flavour profiles find themselves sufficiently intrigued that they soon find themselves trying wine after wine, enjoying the journey of exploration and emerging as the most devoted proponents in the end. Some people swear these wines have brought an end to the hangovers and allergic reactions they have endured in the past. Lovers of the style speak of the satisfaction they feel in supporting small family farms and contributing to an alternative economy. The reasons for trying a taste of natural wine are many. And who knows, you may find that, like a good photo, the best wines are unfiltered and fine.

NATURAL WHITES

CLEANEST TO FUNKIEST

Thörle Grauburgunder (Germany, $22.99)

Lock & Worth Chardonnay (Canada, $28.99)

J. Bouchon Salvaje Pais (Chile, $32.99)

Andreas Tscheppe Blue Dragonfly (Austria, $62.99)

Ausonia di Simone Binelli Machaon Pecorino (Italy $26.99)

Terracura Smiley (South Africa, $23.99)

NATURAL SPARKLING AND SKIN CONTACT

CLEANEST TO FUNKIEST

Staffelter Hof Kiss Kiss Maddie’s Lips (Germany, $31.99)

Bella Mariani Clone 787 Pet Nat (Canada, $46.99)

Matthew Rorick Queen of the Sierra (United States, $33.99)

Cambridge Road Naturalist (New Zealand, $32.99)

Davide Xodo Nina (Italy, $32.99)

Craven Wines Pinot Gris (South Africa, $24.99)

NATURAL REDS

CLEANEST TO FUNKIEST

Monteraponi Chianti Classico (Italy, $31.99)

The Juice Asylum Il Terzo Grado (Italy, $28.99)

Kelley Fox Ahurani Pinot Noir (United States, $44.99)

Barbacan Rosso di Valtellina (Italy, $36.99)

Les Vignerons d’Estezargues Cuvée des Galets (France, $16.99)

Iuli Umberta Barbera (Italy, $21.99)

Tenuta l’Armonia Brio Pop (Italy, $24.99)

Akilia San Lorenzo (Spain, $19.99)

The Rennersistas Waiting for Tom (Austria, $24.99)

Etnella Tracotanza (Italy, $35.99)

Jonc Blanc Les Sens du Fruit (France, $25.99)

Luyt Pipeno Pais (Chile, $24.99)

The Politics

Natural wine seems like an anti-establishment reaction to this fake and filtered world so many of us seem determined to inhabit. While there is no strict definition of “natural wine,” those who are leading the charge share certain characteristics. Its winemakers generally endorse a political attitude that leans a little to the left. They view the consumerism of this century as one of the leading causes of the ecological crisis and see low-intervention farming and winemaking as one solution. However, according to Cultural Insurrection author Jonathan Nossiter, many of these winemakers are “natural without any desire or sometimes even consciousness of the ‘naturalness.’” And though many see the natural wine movement as pitted against “big wine,” Nossiter characterizes this cultural insurrection as “generating an aesthetic and social movement that isn’t oriented in a battle against the industrial standard but outside of it.” Instead of running a business driven by the bottom line, most of these winemakers are content to simply make enough to pay their staff and live comfortably, without luxuries or extravagancies. Having many friends and acquaintances that would count themselves among this group, I can say that the majority want to be “real” people, with “real” friends, having “real” experiences and making “real” wines.

Look for the “Green Cork” symbol on the Banville & Jones shelves to locate our selection natural wines.