Is it possible for Natural Wine advocates to be anything other than assholes? More and more it seems not. For example: “Those ‘faults’ [in Natural Wine] can exist to different levels and, in some cases, I’d argue they add to the wine’s character. It isn’t black and white. Advocates of conventional wine can’t handle that and, even more, can’t handle that some hipster kid on Lower Clapton Road – who they’d argue knows nothing – is celebrating the wine for…
One of America’s most experienced, accomplished and insightful wine writers recently demolished both the idea of “natural” wine and the intellectual artifice of the “natural” wine movement. This is notable because outside of intellectually disciplined observers of the wine world and some hacks like myself, there hasn’t been all that much push back against the foundations of “Natural Wine”. In the course of schooling the natural wine movement at Wine Review Online, Paul Lukacs made the following point that deserves…
In today’s New York Times Sunday Review section writer Bianca Bosker pens a very coherent defense of processed wine. In doing so, however, she notes the thing that has always confused me about Natural Wine champions. Bosker observes that adherents of the “Natural Wine” movement make a point of insisting that the wines they produce are nothing like and are an alternative to the “industrialized, big brand, manufactured, nothing-but-alcoholic-grape-juice wines”—as the Naturalistas have deemed big brand wine. It has always been a bashfest of…
Whenever I see someone disparage other wines and wineries in the service of their own wines I assume one thing and one thing only: Their own wines suck. Interestingly, this brand of disparagement is embraced primarily by those who are trying to sell so-called “Natural Wines”. It has occurred with some regularity that Natural Wine supporters attempt to diminish the quality and character of wines not self-identifying as “natural”. It has happened again in a new article published by JustLuxe…
With regard to “Natural Wines”, what’s wrong with this sentence: “Along with eschewing additives, natural wines are small-batch, made using traditional equipment and fermented using the wild yeasts that occur naturally in the winery, contributing to the terroir of the finished product.” All correct answers (there are more than one) receive a Huzzah!
