More organic (in every way)

A day after I posted the item below on organic wine production, a colleague in Brazil sent me an e-mail saying, “Just back from a ‘natural’ wine tasting. Seriously one of worst wine experiences of my professional life. Everything bio, terrible. Only good thing was dark chocolate and foie gras amuse-bouche.” I hope those last two were separate, but I know what she means. A few months ago a writers’ group I belong to did a similar tasting, with wines mostly from Italy and France. It was more work than most wine tastings, and certainly more than it should have been: Not one of the dozen tasted good, even when we tried them with food (although a few at least tasted a little better then). 

        What was most irksome was the way the proponents of these wines keep saying that their biodynamic principles really and truly demonstrate their terroir, which simply traduces language, making it meaningless. What they demonstrated, in fact, was that in making wines with primitive methods, the flavours simply reflect the winemaking—they were similar to each other, no matter where they came from, or sometimes whichever grape they were made from. “Terroir” is in danger of going the way of “minerality” as a hollow phrase. (As wine-drinking may be in danger of becoming dutiful assessments of moral standing rather than sensual pleasure.)

        But on the other hand, I went to lunch and then, because it was so good, dinner, at a wine bar called Antidote, on Carnaby Street (it used to be La Trouvaille). The wine list is organic, etc., and we drank—quite happily!—glasses of Domaine de Bellevue Muscadet 2014, Domaine de Veilloux Cheverny 2011, and Domaine Ledogar Corbieres 2011. So, there is still something to talk about. The INAO, the French appellation governing body, is now preparing a report aimed at defining “natural” wine. It won’t please everybody—perhaps nobody—but it’s a start.

You say organic, I say. . . ?

Some of the best wines I’ve ever drunk were organic, or at least made from organic grapes. Some of the worst, often labelled as “natural” or biodynamic, were too, really quite punishing to drink (“enjoy” didn’t come into the conversation at all—drinking them seemed more like a duty, or maybe a penance, than anything else).
        The good ones were so good that I’ve always leaned toward the idea that, at least for small-to-medium-sized producers, organic was probably the way to go, and I wasn’t alone—around the world, the number of producers embracing the idea has grown: in the last couple of decades, the acreage of Spain’s vineyards farmed organically quintupled, France’s quadrupled, and Italy’s nearly doubled. That’s what was officially reported; the actual number of people simply adopting some or most of the organic methods was even higher. Now, however, according to an extensive survey in Europe, the numbers are dropping slightly, especially in France (there seem to be problems of administration of their Ecocert program, and people willing to go against the grain by going organic are also the sort of people also willing to go against the grain from bureaucracy). Italy, however, seems to still be moving on; their organic program is more biodiverse, and more directly participatory—it’s called “Biodistretto,” with more local control, and farmers as well as vineyardists involved.
         I can still, decades later, vividly remember drinking a range of splendid wines from the Dry Creek Valley and other parts of northern Sonoma, where there was an early and enthusiastic move to organic principles: Zinfandels from Quivira, Nalle, Seghesio, Preston, and Ridge, Barbera from several vineyards, and a whole range from early-adopter Dave Stare’s Dry Creek Vineyards. All proof enough that it can work, done sensibly.

"Natural wine" -- let us begin. . .

The first time I ever knowingly tasted an organic wine, more than 30 years ago, it was poured by a bearded, sandaled, sweetly sincere winemaker in Mendocino, California, and I have never again been so grateful to see a spit bucket. Good manners prevented me from pointing out that the wine might have had a better fate if it had been mixed with olive oil and drizzled over the salad (also organic, of course) rather than poured into a glass for consumption by someone you didn’t loathe.
       The last time I had an organic wine was last week. It was a Chardonnay from New Zealand, bursting with peaches-and-cream vibrancy, and my reaction was a profound sadness that I didn’t own a cellar full of the stuff (for the record, it was Clos de Ste. Anne “Naboth’s Vineyard” 2008).
       It  may well be that you could duplicate a similar set of opposing experiences next week or next year, even during the same tasting, festival, or dinner, but, increasingly, if you are willing to believe that organic grapes and winemaking are the way forward, you’ll never walk alone.
       In fact, you’ll have a lot of company. It may not always be the sort of company you’d wish—there will probably be some shouting involved, even jostling—but the promise of better wine should keep us marching down the road.
       Shouldn’t it?

Mike Lee: A good man gone, heritage intact

Mike Lee, a founder of Kenwood Vineyards, died at the beginning of May. He was an unlikely sort of pioneer winemaker—the son of a San Francisco policeman, very much a city boy, and giving the impression that he’d rather be partying than anything. But when his family bought the derelict Pagani Brothers winery and vineyards north of Sonoma in 1970, he pitched in, taking short courses at the University of California at Davis and walking the vineyards with every grape grower who’d give him the time, and he and his family quietly built Kenwood into a powerhouse, producing more than 250,000 cases when it was sold (for a reported $50-million) in the mid-1990s.
       His philosophy was simple: restraint, “nothing over the top,” he liked to say, and he’d always add, “let the vineyard do the talking.”
       Along the way, he became a convert to organic farming, and adapted many of Kenwood’s vineyards, while encouraging growers whose grapes he bought to do the same. After he retired, he went to work for Patianna Organic Vineyards in Mendocino County, owned by Patty Fetzer Burke, a daughter of Barney Fetzer, patriarch of the leading California organic wine family. He let the vineyard do the talking there, too.
       Now another circle is closing, with the recent sale of Fetzer to Concha y Toro of Chile, one of the world’s largest wine companies. Previous owners Brown-Forman (Jack Daniel’s, etc.) had allowed Fetzer’s commitments to organics, and quality, to degrade, and according to a source at the winery I spoke with, there’s good cheer and optimism about now being owned by a wine company as opposed to booze barons. Perhaps the new owners should have a Fetzer family reunion and really re-start the ball rolling. . .

Wines of the week: At Galvin’s Café a Vin, a splendid dinner to introduce a range of organic, biodynamic, and "natural" (unfiltered, etc.) wines was really brightened by a 2008 Roussette de Savoie “Cru Frangy” from Domaine Bruno Lupin. Most white wines from Haut-Savoie are benumbingly boring, but Roussette (which has its own appellation) can be enormously charming; this one certainly is, quietly pear-like fruit, gingerbread spice, restrained but very fresh acidity. Then, 2009 Vin de Table Raisins Gaulois, from the irrepressible Marcel Lapierre, who was often inclined to organic, mostly hands-off winemaking long before it was fashionable; this one’s organic Gamay, quietly carbonic-macerated, in the accurate words of the sommelier, “a redcurrant-jam jamboree.” Lovely. http://www.galvinrestaurants.com/