A fad long past its time: "Natural Wine":

Thanks to Nick for sending me this article about high-priced "natural wine:"

Ugh. I hate this fad. This is a peculiar form of insanity that needs to be stamped out yesterday. My thoughts:

1. Native yeasts? OK. But risky, as some produce off flavors. Why not use a cultured yeast you know will work? That said, some winemakers believe that all their past yeasts lurk on the winery walls, waiting to detach and waft into the juice when they sense sugar. Maybe so. But in that case, it's not necessarily wild yeast--it could be a blend of all past years' cultured yeasts used.

2. Not adding sulfite to protect the wine: Insanely stupid idea. Causes the wine to spoil, rot, fester, and ruin.

3. Biodynamic: Biggest hoax in the history of the world. The idiot who created the concept knew nothing of growing plants, and just invented stuff that was sort of like his philosophy re how to live, without having ANY underrstanding of what plants need to thrive. (Rudolph Steiner)

4. Cloudy, smelly, sour wine? WTF? Really? With an expensive dinner? Wow. 

5. Pesticides and fungicides and herbicides ruining vineyards and workers health, everywhere? You bet! But my modern varieties need no spray, and nobody gets sick.

6. Fads for the sake of fads, in the instance of something so serious as good wine, disgust me. 

Guess you can tell where I stand ;)

Just because it was done one way, a millenium ago, is NO REASON to keep doing it that way today. 2000 years ago, nobody understood the germ theory, or various forms of microbial spoilage or complex chemical interactions. Most of the wines of 2000 years ago were sick, spoiled, insipid, dangerous, sour, retching, and injurious. People drank them because (a) they knew drinking the local water (in most locations) could make them sick; (b) they liked the effect that alcohol had upon them; and (c) they didn't have any better choices.

If you want to pay for a glass of cloudy, spoiled wine, have at it! I'll be the one laughing at you.

This photo of Agia Galini Beach is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Dissing on Washington Sangiovese? The Goldilocks Syndrome

I want to believe. I want to believe in Washington Sangio. I love K Vintners' wines generally, but their Guido Sangiovese is too dark in flavor for me. And tonight, we suffered through a Five Star Sangio (and I love their wines), but this one sported flavors that were way, way too dark. The acidity was great but the flavors, instead of the proper cherry notes of an Italian Sangio, were deep into dark purple fruit territory. And the wine was a bit hot at over 14% alcohol. It just doesn't work with Italian fare. And yet, many Italian Sangios are so lean, so austere, that yes even with their cherry fruit that don't marry well with Italian food either. Who wants to bathe in burning acid?

What I think we need is a WA Sangio that is grown in a cooler spot and still has the red fruits we expect. Can any of you suggest one? Or we can drink Brunellos (and Rosso di Montalcinos), which are grown in the warmest part of Tuscany (from the Sangiovese "Grosso" clone), and at their best those are just right.

Great article on hybrid (modern variety) grapes

This writer, who's a professor at Cornell, really nailed it in this article. We should all be drinking more wines made from modern grape varieties, which give us broader diversity, better disease resistance, and more-interesting flavors. To continue to focus only on evolutionarily-restrained Vitis vinifera (European winegrapes) is to head heedlessly towards extinction, just as is happening with the Cavendish banana.

But, if soil minerals don't flavor wine, at least nearby aromatic plants do

It makes sense that stuff floating in the air can stick to the grape and thus make its way into the wine. We know that smoke from forest fires does that (with sometimes terrible results). So can aromatics, such as resins from plants. Think rosemary, sage, pines, eucalyptus . . .

"Garrigue" is a hot term now, to describe woodsy flavors in wine (esp in the Rhone). It relates to the native bushes and trees that grow in and near the vineyards, and rosemary is one of those in the Southern Rhone.

I think such botanical influences on wine add to the complexity of the wine, and can foster a unique "terroir" for each vintage and each vineyard. Now, if the grapegrower can just deter any passing irritated skunk . . .

The article is here.


Here's a photo of garrigue (photo credit to Ian Whitehead):