New Slovenian Wine Law Could Restrict Natural Growers
Real, artisanal, natural wines need championing more than ever
It’s April 1st today, and I’ve seen a couple of great posts. Here are two faves. However, the below is no joke. Sorry about that.
Natural wine growers often come under fire for their resistance to authority or classification. They’re accused of lacking transparency, for using vague and legally undefined terms such as ‘low intervention’ or ‘natural’. And why can’t they play ball with regional bodies and damn well list their village or appellation on the label?
I’ve met hundreds of winemakers who would love nothing better than to write the wine’s origin, right down to the name of the vineyard. But the regulations are against them. If you dare to bottle a slightly hazy wine or an idiosyncratic cuvée where nature played a bigger part than interventions in the cellar, the might of the mainstream wine industry will be on your back.
Many growers I know personally have spent years, if not decades, fighting with a system that continually pushes them away. Michael Wenzel once admitted to me that the continued rejection from tasting panels starts to hurt after a while. Not only that, submitting your wine with a fancy appellation on the label is expensive and time-consuming. If it’s rejected for not being ‘typical’ enough, the grower has to decide between resubmitting (more costs but still no guarantee of acceptance) or declassifying to a level with less stringent requirements.
It’s hardly a surprise that many growers have chosen to opt out of a system that seems ranged against them. Eventually frustration kicks in. Winemakers mostly prefer to focus on what’s happening in their vineyards and cellars - not on what tricks are necessary to get their wines through a regulatory process. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when an additive-free wine produced from organically farmed grapes may not communicate its origin, whilst a heavily processed, chaptalised example carrying a charge of pesticide residues qualifies for a prestigious appellation.
You might think that wine regulation bodies would be content that they’ve wiped the natural guys off the appellation controlée map. But seemingly it doesn’t end there. Slovenia is the latest EU nation to double-down, in a move that looks set to further restrict and obstruct small-scale artisanal growers.
New wine law in Slovenia
This is a developing story. Here’s what I know so far.
