SF Natural Wine Week

 Here's what's on my mind. 

Last  year we saw the start of secular Natural Wine Weeks.

The first one was in SF 2009. 

While I thought it was organized by the Dressner folk, I am now corrected and find out that the motivating force was by Ian Becker (bravo), and the seminar supported by LDM, thanks to the help of the lovely Shawn Mead. 

 There was another in the Spring in Los Angeles, mostly spurred on by Lou Amdur (Lou on Vine) and full disclosure--I was there for the wrap up panel. 

This year the second edition of SFNWW was championed by a collective effort and taken up by restaurants and wine stores around the city. Some wines this week showcased are Arianna Occhipinti from Sicily, Laureano Serres from Spain, Arnot-Roberts and NPA (Kevin Kelley). There's Puzelat and even at RN74, they're pouring some interesting juice.

Most  venues are featuring people who live and die by natural and living their principles. This is something  worth celebrating. Passion is worth celebrating. Principles coupled with sensuality (meaning principles coupled with sound wine)  are worth celebrating. It's worth ones liver for sure, especially,  when the wines are not just ideological but delicious and give so much pleasure. 

Yet the line up up at the restaurant A 16 gave me some pause.

 Below is the blurb from the calendar of events. 

... expect to find the regular by-the-glass list to lean heavily on Italian natural wines. That focus is complemented by Palmina (Monday, 8/23); Robert Sinskey (Tuesday, 8/24); Bonny Doon (Wednesday, 8/25); Unti Vineyards (Thursday, 8/26); Whetstone Wine Cellars (Friday, 8/27); Peay Vineyards (Saturday, 8/28); and Brown Estate (Sunday, 8/29). Each producer will be able to talk at length on the various natural, organic or biodynamic practices they employ, and what it means to work with these methods in California.

I was trying to figure out: did it mean they we're having natural Italiano's and if you want to see more conventional wines and compare the difference? Do they mean compliment or do they mean contrast? I'm actually not sure why some of those names on this list are included in a Natural Wine Week.

Here's where this is disturbing. The category of natural wine is a somewhat slippery slope except predicated by the tenets of nothing added nothing taken away, a touch of sulfur as needed if needed. Basic to the cause is no inoculations and please, no acidifications. There is a transparency in the wines that excite out of control affection for certain drinkers predisposed to the wine roller coaster.  

If the week had been called 'Natural and Sustainable" well, what the hell. I could rock with the A16 list. At any other time, for any other wine promotion, sure.   But here some 'conventional' winemakers included in this line up will be getting a free ride from a different association. No 100% commitment needed. In other words, why buy the cow when the milk is free?  

Obviously I'm having a little fun with the analogy and I'm sure there was no intent to confuse here, but just some confusion. I imagine this comes from confusing organic or biodynamic and commitment to the soil as resulting in a classically natural wine. While all of the wines on the list might be good, I would guess not all of the wines on the list could claim that they don't inoculate or acidify or water back or....well...whatever.  That is an essential difference between those who are natural and those who work more naturally. And while having a Natural Wine week where great and natty wines are poured all over town, getting people to drink them, it seems like not such a great idea to muddy the waters of perception unless there's a conversation around it. But most of the consumers won't know the questions to ask.

 Never the less, it seems as if SF is filled with some terrific events and venues this week, including A16, Some  will party like the 1970's. Check out the blog for the full run down.

Comments

[Thecabfrancofiles.blogspot.com]

Alice, if you're going to lump all these producers together as manipulators, why not at least taste them? Palmina produces an orange wine from Tocai Friuliano, fermented on skins, with no SO2 added. Sounds ultra-natural by your personal definition of "nothing added nothing taken away, a touch of sulfur as needed if needed." This is an outlier in their production, but I'm not privy to all that they do. Maybe some of their wines are natural, maybe some are less so.

As much as you want to define natural, it is not defined. One major problem you ignore, for example, is vineyard manipulation. Copper sulfate and Bordeaux mixture are commonly accepted as natural and permitted in organic and BioD farming. But I'd view these as pragmatic chemical additions. Moreover, while I cannot offer any hard numbers as far as useage, it is likely that in more humid, continental climates anti-fungal treatments are needed more often than in dry, arid climates. By this metric, I'd figure new world regions would have an advantage.

It seems the deck is stacked to some extent. While these producers tout their vineyard practices since they have a serious advantage there, you focus only on the winemaking side. As I see it, what goes on in the vineyard is the most important part. If you insist on a very narrow definition of natural, it ought to be extend to the whole process from bud break to bottling in order to be self consistent.

Beyond that, though, I think you simply don't want these producers to stay in business. The economics of their region do not allow for them throw away wine. So they are pragmatic and fix it so it can sell. Instead of targeting the pragmatists who are doing their best given certain constraints, wouldn't it be more effective to aim for the cynical serial spoofulators?

[Alicefeiring]

Hi There, thanks so much for commenting.

First of all I want to apologize if my wording in this piece caused any offense. Perhaps I should have stayed quiet as it was none of my business. But there you go, I spoke up and it's too late.

I want to point out that I didn't 'lump' all of those producers into one group. I suggested that some of them might be less 'natural' than others and for a week that was introducing SF to new and interesting and perhaps wild tastes, I didn't see what could be learned from some in the group.

I do indeed address farming. Farming is essential and low or no chemical farming is key. In fact, I take it as a given. I'm not sure why you think I ignore it, but I can only think it is because you're not familiar with my writing.

I agree with you, copper in the vineyard is certainly problematic. A while back there was a lively copper debate on the blog and it is worth revisiting. But one must do what one must do to sustain their crop. No? A conscientious farmer is going to use a lot less of the mixture you'd expect. Small farming is going to use far fewer treatments than large scale. Natural is not set the grapes out and pray that they turn into wine, one needs to guide a wine and choose between evils. I have heard people berate organic farmers for their use of petrochemical in tractors...or is it just an excuse to use chemical weedkillers and pesticides?

About your point of fixing a wine. That is a very different philosophical point of view between one who works natural and one who doesn't. "Fixing" a wine is different from saving a wine. Save a wine? No one is going to throw stones. People must make a living.

Making a wine towards a market is also very different than working with soil and climate. And on the topic of sulfur, natural wine evolved from the desire to make wine without sulfur, but just making a wine without sulfur does not make wine natural.

I hope I didn't once again muddy the waters. In case I did,
have you seen Remy Charest's fabulously unemotional and straight shooting piece on natural wines? You might take a look. He did a great job.

http://winecase.ca/2010/10/18/natural-wine-a-more-practical-point-of-view/