I am delighted to report that the inaugural Natural Wine Fair which we co-hosted with 4 other innovative wine merchants (Les Caves de Pyrène, Aubert & Mascoli, Dynamic Vines and Wine Story, since you ask) in Borough Market from last Sunday until Tuesday was an unreserved, barn-storming success albeit one that was fairly exhausting for the organisers and exhibitors.
Carefully scheduled to attract visitors who might also be attending the leviathan London International Wine and Spirits Fair in Docklands, the NWF surpassed our expectations in terms of foot-fall and we have received heaps of positive feedback. In fairness luck played a fairly major part here as the venue, in the satellite Jubilee Market, is only partially covered and either heavy rain or broiling sun would have been problematic. As it was we had 3 days of hazy sunshine and soft breezes which made for a very pleasant environment in which to taste wine and fraternize with wine makers and merchants.
The first day of the fair was aimed at private customers who paid £18 each for the chance to taste up to 500 organic and bio-dynamic wines and meet the people who make them. There was some trepidation amongst the organisers as to whether we would attract enough visitors but some terrific press coverage beforehand helped boost advanced ticket sales and many more people turned up to pay on the day. With over 700 people attending on the Sunday the fair had got off to a superb start although we were under constant pressure to ensure there were ample clean glasses throughout the day.
There was a good turnout from on-trade buyers and journalists over the following 2 days and we were delighted when Jancis Robinson tipped up on Monday afternoon and decided to interview and film the only New World wine maker present, Ron Laughton, of Jasper Hill vineyards in Heathcote, South Australia. Ron featured quite prominently at the fair because he was also the guest speaker at a talk on the New World Perspective on Natural Wine where he was introduced by NWF organiser and Master of Wine Isabelle Legeron. Ron gave his forthright opinions on everything from compost to irrigation observing that ‘if you need to irrigate you’re in the wrong place’.
Jancis also gave the thumbs up to Pascal Labasse’s Jurançon Sec: Domaine Bellegarde 2010 and Fredrik Filliatreau’s red Samur: Château Fouquet 2010 both of which she has short-listed as a strong contenders to feature at a gala dinner at her alma mater, St Anne’s college Oxford, later in the year.
Marc Imbert from Domaine de Torraccia in Corsica attracted a steady stream of visitors eager to taste his dry white and red blends (made from Nielluccio and Sciacarello) as did two celebrated Provencal wine makers Sylvain Hoesch, from Domaine Richeaume, and Laurent Bunan from Mas de la Rouvière in Bandol. Xavière Brugière’s Pic Saint Loup L’Arbouse drew praise from the Tate Gallery’s wine expert Hamish Anderson and if that weren’t enough Gérard Basset (Master of Wine and World Champion Sommelier) singled out his white ‘Les Mûriers’ as showing particularly well. Bruno Ribière’s ‘rich and nutty’ white Grenache was another wine that Jancis rated highly and she averred that it could go well with cheese – a theory I intend to test imminently.
The Natural Wine Fair certainly scotched the myth that low-interventionist wines are all cloudy, feral and funky and made by blokes with bushy beards - there were a handful of those on show of cousre but they were a tiny minority illustrating that Natural Wine movement is a very broad church and its popularity is increasing. The Natural Wine Fair had a definite buzz and the fresh feel of something innovative backed by bags of enthusiasm and goodwill and bit of good luck to boot. I for one can’t wait for the next one but I must remember to order more glasses!
Over the last 2 or 3 years, roughly coinciding with the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (which we used to naively call the ‘Credit Crunch’), there has been a growing ground swell of interest in ‘natural’ wines. One might assume that as wine is made from fermented grape juice it essentially a fairly natural product anyway, but sadly this is not always the case. As with other areas of agriculture, big businesses have left no stone unturned in their efforts to maximise yields and profits and many of them readily deploy all manner of pesticides and chemical fertilizers to achieve those goals. Happily an increasing number of wine drinkers are starting to question the provenance of what they are consuming and are no longer content to buy the mass-produced, ersatz, branded wines so beloved of supermarkets.
One difficulty for the nascent ‘natural wine’ movement is that there isn’t actually an official definition of what a natural wine is. Obviously a natural wine should be made in sympathy with the environment in which it is produced, but unlike organic and bio-dynamic wine there are (as yet) no clear-cut parameters. Enthusiasts agree that natural wines should be made with ‘minimal intervention’ in the vineyard and cellar, but that is open to very broad interpretation. Nearly all natural wines are certified as organic, bio-dynamic or are en conversion to one of these two, but there are some celebrated producers that see the certification process itself as back to front. Take Ron Laughton of Jasper Hill Vineyards in Heathcote, South Australia: “What I don’t understand, though, is that the dirty bastards who can indiscriminately use agrochemicals don’t require any certification, yet I am being pressurized to be certified to be clean. It’s all topsy-turvy and we should be working the other way, to have the dirty guys certified to poison our environment.”
Natural wine makers eschew the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers and other commendable precepts that they favour are hand-harvesting of grapes, not using cultivated yeasts and not fining or filtering prior to bottling; which inevitably increases the amount of sediment but also makes for more characterful wines.
A further key question is the adding of sulphur dioxide [SO2] to wine as a stabilizing or preservative agent. This is a bit of a thorny issue as there is a small group of purists who don’t hold with deploying any sulphur at all. Personally I think this stance is rather extreme as I have had some nasty experiences with unstable wines suffering from problems, such as secondary fermentation after bottling, and I favour the more catholic stance that ‘low’ levels of sulphur [less than 50 milligrams per litre] are more prudent.
Anyway regardless of doctrine (and I rather like fact that the natural wine movement is broad-minded enough to permit some flexibility) I think it is terrific that people are becoming more environmentally conscious about how wine is produced and are looking for more carefully-crafted, greener and less rampantly commercial wines.
An exciting new development for any discerning wine lover is the inaugural Natural Wine Fair to be held in Borough Market, London in May (Sunday 15th for private customers, Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th for press and trade visitors). This pioneering event is the brainchild of globe-trotting, Gallic wine guru Isabelle Legeron (the first French female Master of Wine: www.thatcrazyfrenchwoman.com) and Eric Narioo and Doug Wregg of inspirational and iconoclastic importers Les Caves de Pyrenne.
The Natural Wine Fair is being co-hosted by 5 founding wine merchant partners, among whom we are very pleased to feature – Dynamic Vines, Wine Story and Aubert & Mascoli completing the quintet. The Fair will play host to over 100 acclaimed wine makers who will be on hand to talk visitors through their wine-making philosophies as they sample their wares. There will also be talks and presentations by experts on related topics, so this represents an ideal opportunity for those interested in natural wine to get further acquainted with the concept.
So if you are bored to the back teeth of staid supermarket offerings, want to try some green, characterful and expressive wines, or are just curious what all the fuss is about do visit: www.thenaturalwinefair.com and book your tickets to what promises to be one of the best wine tasting events of the year. I look forward to seeing you there.
The final leg of our buying trip begins in Faugères, an up and coming AOC that sits atop an impressive bedrock of schist, north of Beziers. Château des Estanilles is an estate that has recently changed hands and the good news is that the pioneering work of Michel Louison is being augmented by Julien Seydoux, an enthusiastic and independent-thinking young chap whose family have substantial vine-holdings in Costières de Nîmes. Julien is motivated to make the best possible Faugères and has invested blood, sweat, tears and a fait bit of dosh to make this happen. His 2010 vintage which we will ship in May will be certified organic, a rapidly growing phenomenon among ‘Yapp’ producers.
Our next visit of the day entailed a 3 hour drive across the Languedoc to the pretty Provençal village of Lambesc where Sebastien Ambrosio Collomb gave us a tour of Domaine Oullières and we tasted through his very good white and rosé 2010's, along with his ‘house’ red 2009 (a Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Syrah blend) – all three will feature in our forthcoming 2011 wine list. This estate is also ‘en conversion’ to organic and will gain certification in 2012.
Finally, and after a further 3 hours schleping across Provence and negotiating the Nice rush hour, we arrived at our final tasting of the trip. Domaine de la Source in AOC Bellet, the smallest domaine with which we work, is now run by energetic brother and sister team Eric and Carine Dalmasso. They have doubled the size of the area under vine in the past five years to a whopping 5 hectacres! Somehow, from this tiny patch of vines perched between the Cote d’Azur and Southern Alps, they successfully manage to produce a red, white and rose – total production 15,000 bottles. 95% of the wine is consumed by well-heeled Niçois chez eux or in the fashionable restaurants of Vieux Nice, but the remaining pallet finds its way to Mere (we are their sole export customer). We would encourage anyone that hasn’t sampled these fascinating wines to give them a try – preferably sur terrasse with porchetta nicoise, grillade au fenouil or wood-oven roasted rabbit with thyme. Oh, by the way, did we tell you that next year Domaine de la Source will be certified organic?!
It had been a few years since my last visit to Château la Canorgue, one of the most beautifully located wineries that we have the pleasure to work with, so I was somewhat bemused by several of the signs that I met as I wended my way to the cellar door - ‘Beware snakes’, ‘No tours of the Chateau’ and ‘Private Property’. This apparently hostile reception was quickly explained to me by the charming Nathalie Margan, the daughter of the house and joint winemaker with her father, Jean-Pierre.
Nathalie explained that in 2005 the house had been the primary setting for the Ridley Scott / Russell Crowe / Albert Finney film ‘A Good Year’ when a cast of some 300 had been billeted around the Montagne de Luberon from August to March. No doubt this had been a fillip to the local B&B trade but, since the film’s release, there has been a daily stream of visitors who expressed zero interest in the excellent wines of the estate, but asked to see the terrace and swimming pool where their heroes had performed. During evenings or at weekends when gates are closed and doors locked, such types are undeterred and the Margans have endured several family meals and barbeques being disturbed by camera-toting tourists scaling walls and appearing through hedges to take snaps.
This is a shame, not least, because there is far more of interest in the property than its smattering of stardust and stunning backdrop. There has been a property on this site since Roman times when it was identified as having an excellent source of natural spring water. The water requirements of the house and entire winery come from a system of subterranean aquifers fed by rain and snowfalls, it is not any man-made water system. This is one reason why Jean-Pierre identified its potential to pioneer organic wine when he re-planted the vines in the seventies. The winery itself is house in a former silk factory, testament to the historic trade of the region and its mulberry trees, home of the silk worm.
It really is a wonderful region to visit, especially in the Summer months. We visited nearby Bonnieux on market day (Friday) and enjoyed an excellent lunch in the shaded ‘Le Fournil’ restaurant which is run by friends of the Margans and, unsurprisingly, has a comprehensive selection of their wines on the list.
Any the film itself? Well summed up by Variety magazine:
‘A light rosé from Ridley Scott compared to the hefty cabernets he usually turns out.’
