Excellent stuff. If we had a winemaking philosophy it'd be do as little as you can but.... don't f**k it up .
As an aside one of the benefits of age is having been around in the 1980s , many wines were unclean - Bretty, oxidative and made with natural yeasts because, that's all they knew. The cure was often a big whack of sulphur so things were hit and miss but boy, the good wines were so good.
We made natural wines in the Languedoc between 2000 and 2005. But we were kicked out of Le Verre Volé because our wines were too clean.
I wasn't too upset as I hated going to Le Verre Volé. The air was a permanent fug of cigarette smoke which no one but me seemed to find ironic in a natural winebar. The only food was offal. They were particularly proud of their andouillette that really did smell and taste like shit and was, if I remember, the most paletable thing there.
Anyhow, I concluded that what they really wanted was dirty, funky wine. It didn't matter if you made it without any intrants, if it smelt clean, it was unnatural to them.
I stopped making natural wine in 2005 which in our case meant doubling SO2 additions to as much as 5g total, 3 micron filtration (but still prepping as if bottling unfiltered) and.... well, that's it.
I still used wild yeast and let malo happen naturally. Even today, in Rias Baixas, I did not worry when my 2024 Albariño did malo during the alcoholic fermentation Maybe I can bottle with only 50mg/l total SO2?
I guess it begs the question, what is natural wine? I still firmly assert that the most important part is the farming. if you farm without the use of synthetics and don't add lab yeasts to the must, this to me is the biggest part of it.
I couldn't give a damn about small sulphite additions. Well, actually I could because I can't stand mousiness, so I prefer if a winemaker takes action to avoid it.
50mg/L still sounds like a fairly high total, but hey, it's the free SO2 that matters isn't it?
Excellent stuff. If we had a winemaking philosophy it'd be do as little as you can but.... don't f**k it up .
As an aside one of the benefits of age is having been around in the 1980s , many wines were unclean - Bretty, oxidative and made with natural yeasts because, that's all they knew. The cure was often a big whack of sulphur so things were hit and miss but boy, the good wines were so good.
Ha! Yes, I just about remember those days, as someone who came of drinking age in the late 80s.
You could stop after just the title 👌🏻
That would have saved me a lot of trouble actually. But I guess Noble Rot might not have been so happy with a blank page....
We made natural wines in the Languedoc between 2000 and 2005. But we were kicked out of Le Verre Volé because our wines were too clean.
I wasn't too upset as I hated going to Le Verre Volé. The air was a permanent fug of cigarette smoke which no one but me seemed to find ironic in a natural winebar. The only food was offal. They were particularly proud of their andouillette that really did smell and taste like shit and was, if I remember, the most paletable thing there.
Anyhow, I concluded that what they really wanted was dirty, funky wine. It didn't matter if you made it without any intrants, if it smelt clean, it was unnatural to them.
I stopped making natural wine in 2005 which in our case meant doubling SO2 additions to as much as 5g total, 3 micron filtration (but still prepping as if bottling unfiltered) and.... well, that's it.
I still used wild yeast and let malo happen naturally. Even today, in Rias Baixas, I did not worry when my 2024 Albariño did malo during the alcoholic fermentation Maybe I can bottle with only 50mg/l total SO2?
Hi Robert,
I guess it begs the question, what is natural wine? I still firmly assert that the most important part is the farming. if you farm without the use of synthetics and don't add lab yeasts to the must, this to me is the biggest part of it.
I couldn't give a damn about small sulphite additions. Well, actually I could because I can't stand mousiness, so I prefer if a winemaker takes action to avoid it.
50mg/L still sounds like a fairly high total, but hey, it's the free SO2 that matters isn't it?