Laurent Barth on Natural Wines
I met a young guy from Alsace at the hipster wine fair in Angers last February, who I was told was making great natural wines.
We arranged to get some samples, tasted them this week, and we're going to work with him. We found his wines precise, delicate, dry, charming and reasonably priced.
Laurent Barth took over a micro-estate in Bennwihr from his family and is just starting out. He sent us some nice explanations about how he works in France, which I lazily translated through one of the internet translation machines. It is a rather nice summation of what making natural wines is about:
This vision of things is idealistic, but for me a wine should always reflect its soil as well as possible, its vine type and, why not, its vigneron. This type of winemaking can generate wines with inaccuracies and imperfections but the wine will have an identity.
The sylvaner, at least, isn't dry.
mr. barth borrowed my baseball card collection to look at and has yet to return it. the collection includes my original mickey mantle card. it would be appreciated if the collection was returned.