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Natural Wine
There are all sorts of wine buzzwords running around these days. Some are only buzzwords and some, though seemingly vague, correspond to actual movements populated by actual wine producers.
While the term Natural Wine means organic production to an American, in France there is an actual Natural Wine movement with many wonderful producers. The distinction between organic producers, biodynamic producers and terroir-driven producers is often vague and often the same producers overlap into several categories. There are lots of small vigneron grouplets out there and there will be more in the near future. Many of the grouplets, seemingly natural allies, speak badly of their colleagues in other grouplets and there is plenty of animosity between these movements in France. The same splintering between grouplets is now going on in Italy!
The natural wine movement is actually kind of organized, has a web site, has leaders and has several shows around France during the year. Sometimes they are referred to as the sans soufristes, since many of them vinify without using sulphur and some bottle without using any sulphur whatsoever. They also tend to be people who like to laugh, drink, argue, and sometimes brawl, with a little less personal seriousness than the Nicolas Joly contingent in the biodynamic crowd, although many of the natural wine growers are actually in biodynamie. Many of the growers in the Natural Wine Movement seem to know each other, at least in the core group, and much of the association seems to be one of spirit and friendship and good times, rather that a formal codification. This ambiance suits me well, because I'm always wary of organizations with too many codes, too many pretensions, too many rules and too many secret handshakes.
As an importer, I don't want to get involved in the personality and sectarian disputes between these various movements.But though our company works with growers across all these movements, we do have a large concentration in the French Natural Wine grouping. They include (in random order):
- Pierre Overnoy
- Dard et Ribo
- Antoine Arena
- Marcel Richaud
- Pierre Breton
- Thierry et Jean-Marie Puzelat
- Clos Roche Blanche
- Les Vins Contés
- Larmandier-Bernier
- Mouthes le Bihan
- Château Moulin Pey-Labrie
- Georges Descombes
- Claude Maréchal
- Domaine le Briseau
- Agnès et René Mosse
- Philippe Pacalet
- Jean-Marc Brignot
- Bera, Vittorio & Figli
At the same time, I would not want Louis/Dressner Selections to become the American branch of the French Natural Wine Movement. I try to avoid using the term natural wine because everyone thinks I'm only talking organic and you can be organic and machine harvest, you can be organic and overcrop, you can be organic and use innoculated yeasts and enzymes. You can also be organic, natural, biodynamic or terroir-driven and make just bad wine. All these visions are simply too limited. Instead, I use the phrase "real wine" which is perhaps meaningless, but which I think is closer to the spirit of the type of unspoofulated (another vague term) wines I like.
Perhaps you can argue that we don't need another cliché. True enough. But go explain Marc Ollivier and the Domaine de la Pépière in the Muscadet. These are thrilling dry white wines that come uniquely from seléctions massales vines -- no clones here. Everything is picked by hand, done at low yields, vinified without spoof and the vines are old, expressive and complex. That's right the vines!
Ollivier is a modest guy who is not part of any movement. He is in a transition to organic certification and is now plowing his vineyards. Others in the AOC have done this work for years, but to me Marc makes the greatest wines of the Muscadet. Maybe it is because he only has massale, maybe it is because his vineyards are in granite rather than the predominant schist and gneiss of the region or maybe it is the age of the vines. There are many things going on here and even though he has not been lauded or stamped by any of the French natural, organic, biodynamique, terroirist movements, I'm proud and delighted that our firm imports his wines.
To me, Marc Ollivier is one of the heroes of Natural Wine and he is virtually unknown in France and is certainly unrecognized by the leaders of the Natural Wine Movement. We work with another thirty or so growers who do incredible work bringing their vineyards alive and into your glass. Their wines have a purity and definition that industrial techniques simply cannot replicate. Some of those thirty are members of movements, some are not not, but at Louis/Dressner, we are never going to limit ourself to an authorized list of what is good and correct. We go out, see the vineyards, see the cellar, get to know the grower and taste comprehensively. We make judgments and take risks rather than market a branded concept.
I'm skeptical of movements, slogans and catch-all phrases which try to make simple what is actually terribly complex. Our firm has avoided selling wine on the basis that it doesn't have sulphur, is organic, is this or that. Finally, all these ways of working in the vineyards and in the cellar have the goal of making great wine. We do not look for producers who are making natural products or biodynamique products or organic products -- we are looking for producers who make great wines from great terroirs. Eighteen years importing wine has taught us that working naturally is the only way to do make great wines, but what interests us is the goal of great wine, not the slogan or cliché.
This might make me eccentric, but as a veteran of the late 60s, who remains sentimentally both left-wing and left-wine, I've learned to distrust movements. Talk to Chaussard, Mosse, Puzelat and many veterans of the sans-soufre movement and they will tell you that there were too many excesses in the name of san-soufre. Perhaps these extremes moved everyone to rethinking the use of sulphur and moved the level of winemaking forward. But there have been too many examples, and new ones pop up all the time, of new estates whose goal is simply making sans-souffre.
Doing a quick cold carbonic maceration without sulphur and popping reduced wine in autolyse into the bottle is not my idea of natural winemaking. But that telltale reductive odor is almost a desired effect by a whole range of neophyte producers as are white wines which quickly referment in bottle. It is viewed as the guarantee of "natural" winemaking, but finally it is the triumph of method winemaking over terroir. It is a Michel Rolland of another sort....formulaic winemaking which makes different terroir from all over France taste the same. To my mind, great wine still requires intelligent and careful élevage and Jules Chauvet turns in his grave when his name is used in the name of flawed winemaking.
So what's the simple answer to guide the trade and consumers? Unfortunately, there is none. Everything is a tentative judgment based on too many variables and wine remains confounding and difficult
Go buy a sample case of wine, like Eric Asimov suggests, and have some fun. Navigating through the thicket of producers, AOCs, grape varieties, vintages, critics, bloggers, importers, frauds and visionaries is all part of the fun.
Joe Dressner
West Coast Schedule
Apparently, the link to my West Coast podcast schedule does not work, so here is the actual schedule:
May 3 Thursday
Portland Oregon
Seminar and Wine Tasting E&R
Open to Consumers and Presbyterians, but only by reservation
7:00pm
6141 SW Macadam Ave # 104
Portland
(503) 246-6101
May 4 Friday in Seattle
Pike and Western-“Back Room Tasting” Consumer event
7:00pm
Open to Consumers and Episcopalians
www.pikeandwestern.com
1934 Pike Pl
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 441-1307
May 5 Saturday in Seattle
Two Tastings at Two McCarthy and Schiering
McCarthy and Schiering Ravena
Consumers and Baptists
11:30-2:00
6500 Ravenna Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98115
ravenna@mccarthyandschiering.com
McCarthy and Schiering Queen Anne
Consumers and Disciples of Christ
2:30-5:00
2401 B Queen Anne Ave N
206-282-8500
queenanne@mccarthyandschiering.com
May 7 Monday in Seattle
Triage Tasting for the Wine Trade
Le Pichet Dinner in Seattle
www.lepichetseattle.com
Consumers and Lutherans
1933 1st Ave
Seattle
(206) 256-1499
Call for a reservation
May 9 Wednesday in San Francisco
12:00-4:00 Wine Trade Industry Tasting at Cav
Open Only to Wine Industrialists and Methodists in The Wine Trade
1666 Market St
San Francisco,
K&L Tasting
Open to Consumers and Seventh-Day-Adventists
4:30- 6:60
K&L - San Francisco
638 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: (800) 437-7421 or
(415) 896-1734
Citizen Cake Dinner Sponsored with K&L Wines
8;00 pm
www.citizencake.com and www.klwines.com
Open to Pentescostals, Jews and Congregationalists
399 Grove St
San Francisco
(415) 861-2228
Reservations for the K&L Dinner at Citizen Cake!
May 10 Thursday
Cav Wine Bar
5-7
Open to Consumers and Members of the Assemblies of God
1666 Market St
San Francisco,
(415) 437-1770
www.cavewinebar.com
I'm Going to Chicago and The West Coast!
I'm going to be doing a bunch of exciting public events where you can meet me and taste delicious wines.
Net week, I'll start in Montreal, where Alice Feiring, Evan Spingarn and I will be meeting consumers at the Lionel Groux Metro Station at 3 pm on Tuesday. We will be holding a roundtable discussion on the future of the SAQ, the Québec state monopoly.
Wine Journalist Alice Feiring
From there, I'll be going to Chicago, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
This is going to be a very exciting trip for me and I hope to meet you, yes you, at one of the public get-togethers. There will also be various trade events for those of you who are lucky enough to be in the glamorous wine trade.
I've put together a podcast which details the various stops along the trip and how you can participate. Just click on the link below:
Meet the Wine Importer!
Family Album 1!
I'm in a sentimental mood these days and I've been thinking of all the wonderful Dressners out there!
As far as I know, I'm the only Dressner carrying Romorantin from multiple producers. None of the rest seem to be in the wine business.
Take Roy Dressner, for instance.
Roy Dressner is an MD at the Meridan Health Center in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. There are lots of Dressners in New Jersey, which next to New York, may be the state with the largest concentration of Dressners in America.
Dr. Dressner's proud subspecialty is colon and rectal Surgery and he was board certified way back in 1999.
Roy M. Dressner completed his general surgical training at Monmouth Medical Center in 1997, where he was honored with the John C. Borden Memorial Surgical Award for Proficiency and Outstanding Service in the Field of Surgery. He then completed a fellowship in Colon and Rectal Surgery at St. Lukes- Roosevelt Hospital, New York.
A fellow of the American College of Surgeons as well as the American College of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, Dr Dressner’s professional affiliations include American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons as well as the New York and New Jersey Societies of Colon And Rectal Surgeons.
With a special expertise in the minimally invasive surgical treatment of colon-rectal cancers, diverticular disease and inflammatory bowel disease, Dr Dressner performs advanced laparoscopic procedures for these and other gastro-intestinal disorders. He is also the medical director for the Center of Defecatory Disorders providing diagnostic and treatment modalities (both medical and surgical) for fecal incontinence.
Dr Dressner has also been selected as one of “America’s Top Physicians” (Consumer Research Council) for three consecutive years (2003-2004; 2004-2005 and 2005-2006) and one of "America's Top Surgeons" (Consumer Research Council) for 2007.
Here's a salute to Dr. Roy M. Dressner, one of the many Dressners out there working hard to make our world a better place for you and me!
An Urgent Request from Greg Hill!
Hi Joe,
I just came across your site a couple of weeks ago. Thanks: it's funny and informative. I particularly enjoyed your piece on "real wine". It made sense, or I had agreed in advance of reading it, because I've come to rely on the Louis/Dressner label when my meager knowledge fails me (often) in the wine shop.
This prompts a question on how wine could be uh, marketed.
Have you ever considered marketing wine as Louis/Dressner Selections?
I've always had a really difficult time remembering french chateau/labels in particular, and I even know some French! Despite this failure I've continued to buy French wines. Time and again I'd be in the shop not knowing whether I was about to spend $20 on something quite nice or something i'd immediately forget. But I did eventually detect a pattern; wines with your label on it tended to be good, I tend to read labels. I learned to let you be my guide....
How about this one: you know those hideous black bags with gold flowers or something printed on them some retailers use? You wines probably steer clear of retail partners of that ilk but for the sake of argument imagine bags printed with Louis/Dressner propaganda. Could be an interesting experiment on a targeted basis. Choose two/three shops, supply them for six months, monitor sales.
Regards,
Greg Hill
An Urgent Message from Dara Levine!
I just received the following urgent e-mail:
Dear Joe,
I have seen your wine blog and I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about an event that I think you might love. This May, Wynn Las Vegas is hosting The Bon Appetit Culinary Focus, the ultimate food and wine event that brings together some of the top vintners in the world.
On Saturday, May 19th, guests at Wynn Las Vegas will enjoy a Winemaker’s luncheon series at 12:30 pm, hosted at Daniel Boulud Brasserie, Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare, Alex and SW Steakhouse with industry leading wine-makers special preset menus.
The highlight of the night will be the Vine and Dine Dinner Gala Event, which will be a true tribute to food and wine. World class chefs will take turns preparing courses in a five-course dinner. Each table will seat amazing vintners, one more impressive than the next, and what better way to top off the night than with the first live auction in the state of Nevada hosted by Zachy’s.
I have attached a brief blurb with more information. I am happy to answer any of your questions. I know you may not want to post this on your blog, just getting the information out there! Thanks.
Best,
______________________
Dara Levine
KB Network News
www.kbnetworknews.com
The 2007 European Wine
Ambassador Will be at Our Office This Afternoon!
Peter Nolis, this year's recipient of the prestigious European Wine Ambassador Award will be at our office this afternoon.
Joining him will be JR Battipaglia, who is a member of the Chevaliers du Porto.
Past European Wine Ambassadors include Michael Goldstein of New York's Park Avenue Wines & Spirits, who has never visited our office.
Only 37 Hours Left Before the Big Mosse Tasting!
I'm at the office cleaning-up and writing witty and irreverant tasting notes. My whole day has been turned upside down because my bicycle had a flat tire this afternoon and I did not have a spare tube with me. I found a great food blog today by a woman named PIM. Otherwise, I am now using an old double-edged razor from a German manufacturer named Merkur. I have never had a closer shave but I have had to put up with some nicks and scratches while I acclimate my face to the new system.
You Too Can Meet Agnès and René Mosse, Natural Wine Vignerons from the Anjou!
Tuesday April 10th from 11:12 am through 5:18 pm
Yes, they are coming to New York on vacation and have agreed to spend a day planted in our office serving their wines.
This exciting show, squeezed into our 250-square-feet national headquarters, is open to all bonadfide members of the wine trade. No cheaters, bloggers, fake consultants or freelance journalists are allowed!
In fact, you'd better call in advance and make sure I'll let you in. My cell number is 347-819-3416.
We will also be showing new releases that we wholesale directly in New York, most of which are unsellable and already on close-outs.
See you there!
I Had a Nightmare about Henri Marionnet!
Photo by Bertrand Celce
My wife is in Italy and I'm home alone with my dog Buster.
I had trouble getting to sleep last night and had a nightmare about Henri Marionnet, the famous Touraine wine producer. I can't remember the details but it had something to do with giant reptiles and vineyard sites with 150-year-old Romorantin.
April 1st is my wife's birthday and she is dining with a group of famous Italian vignerons like Jo Pithon and Claude Maréchal.
Happy Birthday and all my love!
Cult Journalist Alice Feiring Gives Some Passover Wine Tips
Alice Feiring is tackling the difficult question of finding good Kosher wines for Passover in her latest contribution to her excellent blog.
First of all, I'd like to wish all our Jewish friends out there (which includes Alice Feiring) a merry Passover and I hope they get to share alot of kremeslach and choretses with all their loved ones on these two holy Jewish nights. The young ones always love spinning their Passover dreidls and this is a beautiful event which even Jesus Christ used to enjoy, although his last Seder didn't turn out too well for him.
Alice Feiring Winning a James Beard Award for Wine Journalism
My view has always been that the expression good Kosher wine is an oxymoron. I once told this to my former cardiologist, who is a Talmud scholar, when he noticed I was a wine importer on one of the rare occasions he actually looked at my chart. The Doctor immediately told me how there was so much great Kosher wine being made these days. When I informed him that this phrase was an oxymoron, he told me that I was going to need four heart bypasses.
Wine is an important part of the Jewish and Catholic traditions, although forbidden in Muslim and Protestant societies. I've never understood why Jews who are not Kosher feel a compulsion to drink Kosher wine on Passover, but for those of them who do feel this strange compulsion, my recommendation has always been to go with the Manischevitz Heavy Malaga. You can add some ice cubes and Kosher for Passover Seltzer to calm down the drink and reduce the cloying sweetness. And you have the advantage of not having any bad surprises -- the Heavy Malaga makes no pretense to be a Great Kosher Wine, you know how it is going to taste and it tastes reliably terrible. You won't be disappointed, you'll have no regrets. It is the oenological equivalent of eating at MacDonalds. Plus, it is cheap.
Alice Feiring touring the Clos Roche Blanche with Catherine Roussel and Didier Barouillet
Why is there no great Kosher wine? Because the very process of making Kosher wine excludes the possibility that it will be great wine. Only Sabbath observing Jews can make the wine, and not only does this notion smack of some sort of racism, it also eliminates so many of the world's great winemakers. On what basis -- their mother's weren't of Jewish origin! Additionally, to be a kosher wine, no one involved in the harvest or vinification can do anything on Friday after sundown or on Saturday during the day. What can possibly be the sense in all this arcane ritual other than religious extremism? All the great vignerons I know work like lunatics during the harvest, often around the clock, and it would be inconceivable to take off in the midst of the vendange.
Unfortunately, the harvest doesn't wait and the vinification is not sabbath observant. Making good wine is horribly complicated and requires rigor in so many little details. To reduce everything to the primacy of having guys who hang about in synagogues on Saturday brings up the more basic question: why bother drinking wine in the first place? There are lots of other beverages out there which can be easily made without any non-Jew touching the liquid. This sort of sectarian notion of the vine might have appeal during these times of sectarian and religious strife, but I'll be drinking something else. If the religious identity of who makes the wine is more important that what's in the bottle, it is impossible to create a culture of great wine.
There is a second category of Kosher wine which is even more extreme. In this case, the wine must be brought to a boiling point to cleanse the wine, a process guaranteed to destroy anything interesting in the bottle. Basically, you have to kill off all the living material in the wine to spill it on your Passover plate when you recite the 10 plagues. What's the sense in all this?
If people want to drink kosher wine out of religious superstition than it is their business. I have no objection, much as I don't care what they are serving in a Catholic Church when the Priest drinks the communion wine. What I don't understand is the compulsion to argue that these wines are world class or great. Some are better than others, but the key thing is that they are made to observe the kosher process.
I am Jewish and I am proud of being raised in the great traditions of Chico, Harpo, Groucho and Karl. I love great wine and see no reason why I have to celebrate my Passover or any other holiday drinking wine approved by a Rabbi. I would rather drink a wine that is in tune with nature, which to me is a far more spiritual notion of the world than drinking wine because it has a Rabinical seal. Radikon's Oslave 2002 went fabulously last year with gefilte fish -- it was a sublime, almost religious experience!
Please note I have revised this page after some kind soul sent me an e-mail on November 30th, 2007, pointing out that I was mistakenly lumping together the two different types of Kosher wine. The first category does not require boiling the wine, only the second more extreme category requires boiling. I didn't realize that there were two classifications of kosher wine, but it was intellectually sloppy on my part to not do further research and I would like to apologize to my readers. Blogs don't have fact checkers, but that is no excuse for writing factually misleading and wrong material. My apologies.
I have corrected the above text but my sentiment about kosher wines, boiled or unboiled, remain the same.
Anyhow, please take a look at Alice's piece on Passover by going over to her excellent blog:
Cult Wine Writer Alice Feiring on Kosher Wine
How to Evaluate Wine
Robin Garr, who was the first person to ever have a wine discussion board on the internet, is now in Italy and is evaluating Italian wine.
Mr. Garr has a wonderful video on his web site which shows the marvelous process of judging wine. This video gives insight to the public about how difficult decisions are made under often difficult circumstances.
Don't miss this exciting video:
Evaluating Italian Wines
Reports from Italy
Actually, I am on 56th Street in Manhattan, but Kevin McKenna and Denyse Louis are in Italy to attend everything but Vinitaly.
As with all major wine shows, the real activity now goes on at the "off" salons, that is the satellite tastings organized by smaller growers outside of the main event. Vinitaly is an enormous event where you can get dizzy just imagining how so much horrible wine is made and how so many people seem to buy the stuff. It is like Vinexpo on steroids. All the important people in the American trade will be there tasting all the important wines from all the important producers in Italy. Mercifully, Kevin and Denyse will be at Vini Veri, Villa Favorita and the biodynamic Velier show. In principal, these are all rotofermentor and Cottarelli-free.
I just spoke to Denyse and she is safely housed at a luxury palace in Nogara. Even the beds are nice in Italy, as compared to the horrible spots we have to sleep in when we travel through France. Kevin and Denyse are staying at a series of luxury hotels....when I travel through France the Balladins is the high price ticket and only if there is not a l'Etape Hotel in the area.
I did receive an e-mail from Kevin late last night. Kevin just spent two days in Sicily and reports that the 2006s from Arianna Occhipinti, the young new star, are stunning.
My Wife is Over the Atlantic on Her Way to Vinitaly Counter Salons!
It is 9:05 pm and my wife, Denyse Louis, is on her way to meet Ken Rosati and Kevin McKenna in Verona. From there, they will be tasting a series of Italian Real Wines at three different alternative salons organized during Vinitaly.What am I supposed to do?
Denyse's plane passed Chicoutimi some time ago, but is only starting the Atlantic crossing. I'm invited to Jorge's big birthday bash at a Congee Palace on the Bowery and am about to close up the office.
See you later!
Don't Miss Cult Wine Journalist Alice Feiring's Report on the Polaner Selections Tasting Last Week!
Some great tasting notes and commentary by Alice Feiring that are well worth reading.
Cult Wine Writer Alice Feiring's Crack Polaner Coverage
Nostalgic Feelings!
Spring is in the air and I am feeling sentimental.
It makes you realize it is great to be alive, even if Barolo estates are using the BR97 innoculated yeast and adding too much sulfur to their wine.
So many beautiful, sentimental images rush to mind today:
My Children Many Years Ago Before They DIscovered the Internet
My Wife Before I Met Her on Match.Com
Cans of Industrial Yeasts Used to Make Crappy Industrial Wines
Congratulations to the Puzelat Brothers!
Happy news from Les Montils these days.
Congratulations to the happy couple, Thierry and Jean-Marie, on the birth of Riri and Mimi!
Cult Wine Journalist Alice Feiring Now Has Comments on Her Blog!
This is your chance to participate!
I've already added several comments under the name of Randy "Bucko" Buckner. You won't want to miss out on this opportunity.
Cult Wine Writer Alice Feiring's Web Site