Let's be clear - What exactly are you drinking? Respecting the true nature of wine – without cultural intervention
If you took a Ferrari and replaced its engine with one from Ford, swapped the original Italian leather seating with a vinyl set, and spray-painted it with a color not recognised by the official handbook, could you say you are still driving a Ferrari? So, you may think you are drinking Sauvignon Blanc, or some other proclaimed variety, but how closely does the wine in your glass represent its origin?
It looks like a Ferrari. But how do you know?
This presents quite a curiosity for the neutral wine observer. A wine that is blended with industrial yeasts and yeast nutrients, fermented at a controlled temperature, fined with gelatine and bentonite, filtered twice and finally sulphurised is supposed to be typical of its variety, while a wine that is spontaneously fermented and neither fined, filtered nor sulphurised is supposed to be atypical of its variety?
So, for example, you take a Riesling grape, press it, let it become wine without intervention and this wine should (supposedly) not taste like Riesling?
How is that possible?
How can a Riesling grape not taste like itself without intervention?
There must be a mistake in thinking somewhere.
What we think we are drinking, for the most part, is determined and characterised by a system. A system based on a historical set of assumptions and agreements of what varietal wine should taste like, and not what it should naturally be.
What exactly are we tasting?
Current quality wine testing and assessment stems from a fundamental misunderstanding. Evaluators often mistake cultural intervention for the inherent qualities of the grape variety. In a wine that is fermented with industrial yeasts, fined, filtered and sulphurised, one does not taste the typicity of the variety, but the typicity of the respective technical alteration of the wine. You could say - It is the typicity of cultural-technical intervention you are tasting, and not the direct, unadulterated expression of the original grape.
Within the EU, more than 100 oenological processes and treatments are permitted to modify wine.
In the end, what remains is a kind of wine surrogate, a substitute, which always tastes within a defined pigeon-hole of parameters, and is therefore instantly known. This is what quality wine tasters and wine connoisseurs are looking for: The consistent and identical taste of a variety that fits within a learned framework, one which serves to reassure themselves - if I can recognise this variety, I am a wine expert, and my expertise is affirmed.
However, they fail to see that they're identifying not the variety itself, but a technically distorted version of the grape variety.
With natural wine, the quality control system rejects wines with great reliability. As a rule, there are two reasons for this:
1. the wine is cloudy;
2. the wine is not typical of the variety (or alternatively not typical of the vineyard).
In other words – natural wines do not ‘fit’ the accepted mold for how wines should taste like, a framework which supports the accepted constitution and expertise.
Natural wine, unconstrained by narrow aesthetic guidelines, is allowed to develop individually, freely, and unpredictably, each developing its own unique style that is 'unplaced’ within preconceived notions, even with the case of aromatic varieties.
Natural wine confronts the wine drinker and challenges his or her view of the world of wine. Accepted certainties are thrown overboard. If it is not about recognising the technical and cultural interventions, then what is it about? A natural wine maker may answer this by saying it’s about appreciating individual, multifaceted beauty, curiosity, and joy.
As we search for transparency and authenticity in many of the lifestyle connections we embrace as part of our lives, with wine, perhaps we should approach it without preconceived notions and expectations. An alternative path is to get involved and understand it in its singularity, appreciate it and enjoy it without deconstruction, but of course, this requires courage and letting go of cherished certainties.
Natural wine looks to free itself, and us, from the patterns or schemes we have been told to learn and recognise. Unashamedly there is no criteria to cling to for reassurance, no categories to intellectually classify the wine. There is only the wine, the moment, and the unbiased, open-minded observer finding joy in the experience.
