Finally, the penny has dropped. My “problem” with natural wine is me – my own defensiveness & prejudice. It’s taken me a while to get here but I feel much better now!
Why defensive and prejudiced? Happily these are not emotions that I often identify in my reactions to things and perhaps that’s why it’s taken me a while to have this breakthrough. My initial negative reaction is the implication that if you don’t make wine within the somewhat fungible boundaries of natural wine your wines are by definition “unnatural”. So by choosing this term the natural winemakers and their proponents appear to me to be laying down a gauntlet. They are not only expressing their own philosophy they are at least implicitly condemning those who do not follow it – me included. How dare they!! First big red defensiveness flag and a hurdle that for me is genuinely quite hard to get over.
Wine for human consumption doesn’t occur naturally. It is in every case the result of human intervention. I totally buy that the level of intervention can and does vary enormously and that transparency within limits about the winemaking processes and additives is a worthy aim. However, for the minimal interventionists to lay claim to the title “natural” seems both arrogant and incorrect. A big red prejudice flag right there overlaid with pedantry from my former life as a lawyer where the precise use of words mattered.
Finally, a defensiveness due to my failings to adequately communicate our personal philosophy of winemaking. We’ve been asked literally hundreds of times if we’re working towards becoming organic. Hundreds possibly heading into the thousands and I’ve still not got a convincing, succinct response that counters the widespread belief that all that’s organic and “natural“ is good and everything else is bad therefore everyone must be striving to become “natural”. Massive dollops of both defensiveness and prejudice here. This is a complicated subject and one it’s hard to talk about superficially. Any attempts to balance the debate sound like sour grapes from people who carelessly exploit the environment – more defensiveness right there.
So you see, my problem with natural wine is definitely me!!
Post script – the use of SO2 is one of a number of defining objective criteria relating to organic and natural winemaking. We do not produce natural wines but to illustrate why my defensiveness has been getting the better of me here’s a table of the permitted SO2 levels for different categories of wine. As you’ll see our SO2 use is in all cases a fraction of the permitted levels for European non-organic wine and also comfortably below that permitted for European organic and even biodynamic wines. On this criteria at least my understanding is that our wines would be allowed to participate in the RAW wine fair. Definitely a defensive post script. More work required on my issues!!
Maximum permitted total sulphite levels in:- | European max. | European organic max. | Bio-
Dynamic max. (Demeter) |
RAW Wine charter | Clos Rocailleux actual levels (we’re European non-organic winemakers) |
Dry, non-sparkling, white wines
|
200 mg/l
|
150 mg/l |
90 mg/l (& also for non-sparking rosé) |
70 mg/l |
66 mg/l Clos Rocailleux 2015 Vieilles Vignes Blanc |
Dry, non-sparkling, red or rosé wines
|
150 mg/l
|
100 mg/l
|
70 mg/l
|
70 mg/l |
60 mg/l Clos Rocailleux 2014 Réserve Rouge
51 mg/l Chez Rocailleux 2015 Braucol rosé
|