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Japan and Natural Wine
April 18, 2008

Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now.

Borrow from Burnt Norton? Sure. Let's.

The beginning of the end is when natural wines makes its way into a trend story, no? Or am I just being hyper-emotional? Meningers Wine Business Journal, ever see it?

I was at first amused then perplexed at the article by Ned Goodwin on the Japanese craze for 'natural wines.' I cannot get the link to work, so give it a Google on your own please, the actual title is....The Japanese Embrace 'Natural' Wines.

"Wine Tokyo, the largest wine fair in the Japanese calendar, was held on 8 April, where distributors purveying extreme styles of minimally sulphured wines, under the vague and frequently misused term “BIO,” drew the most attention from punters, buyers and sommeliers alike. Is this the future of the Japanese market, or merely a passing fad?

According to Japan`s most influential wine trade journal, WANDS, sales of ‘natural’ wine have increased dramatically in the last three-years, possibly as much as 25-30%. However, due to the implicit vagaries of the term, it is difficult to come up with exact statistics. After all, is the term an abbreviation for ‘biologique,’ or organic wine? If so, as biodynamically produced wines are inherently organic, the term should encompass this sector of the market also. Moreover, the extreme school, or ‘naturel’ producers eschewing responsible levels of sulphur dioxide, usually farm organically and thus, are part of the sector grouped under the BIO banner.

In a recent article in WANDS, Kenichi Hori of the Californian Wine Institute, states that the term BIO is used as a marketing tool. Importers of the extreme school of wine claim that their products, despite obvious faults, are healthy and prevent hangovers. As a result, many producers such as Thierry Puzelat in the Loire, are encouraged to make wine with minimal or no SO2, to be labeled as ‘BIO’ for the Japanese market."


Class, look at that last graph and the last sentence. Puzelat is ENCOURAGED?

PICT49_16.JPG Thierry Puzelat needs no encouragement.


Thierry has been on the low sulphur track way before the Japanese 'encouraged' him and his brethren such as Olivier Lemasson of Vins Contés, Hervé Souhaut and Dard et Ribo. The reason Thierry, his brother Jean-Marie etal. became rock stars in Japan was because the country discovered their wines where delicious as well as having purity. The wines, as it turned out were unsulphured (or low sulphured.) and then their thirst began and a cult of the wine underground commenced. The writer seemed to have gotten it backwards.

But what the writer did get correct was " the term BIO is used as a marketing tool."

I have to hop on my bike, get something to drink for Passover (there are no unsulphured kosher wines by the way) clean the apartment and get out of her so long commentary is shelved for next week, but I wanted to continue the nonsequiter….

I was at a little gathering pulled togeter by Byron Bates at the Chelsea Hotel, in the room Syd killed Nancy, something BB called Fête de Puzelat. Thierry had brought along a bottle of his 1996 Buisson, which is sauvignon blanc. He said had been his first attempt at absolutely no sulphur, and made just for home use.

It was a twelve-year-old wine with absolutely no oxidation. The wine was fresh and slightly evolved with years to go before it melts. A lyrical and vibrant wine.

As the room darkened and Byron lit tea candles Thierry told the trick of making stable wine that reflects terroir without sulphur, and it is that almost old fashioned concept of élevage. Tried and true, there are no short cuts. Wine takes time. That sauvignon blanc had been in vat for almost two years before seeing a bottle. Healing from heartbreak and making great wine-- without sulfur, have something in common. They both need time. And taking time is the polar opposite of the immediacy of trend.
Comments

Time. That's the one thing that there doesn't seem top be enough of, in our marketing driven world.

Thanks for sharing the secret, Alice!

 Hank on April 19, 2008 01:06 AM

Thanks very much for pointing out this article - which is in many ways more like an opinion piece. I was baffled too by certain statements and sweeping judgments. Goodwin makes it feel as though all the vins naturels have major defects. Come on.

As if "conventional" winemaking didn't have any problems either. Oversulfured wines, brettanomyces in big, overripe, high-alcohol wines, Mega Purple, overextraction, disharmonious flavors from bad combinations of inoculated yeast strains... I could go on. Yet I wouldn't condemn the whole lot, even though my environmental sensibilities and my thirst for wines with personality tend to lead me very much towards organic and especially, biodynamic wines.

There are no magic bullets in winemaking, whatever the style or approach. Time and care, and well-applied know-how are the obvious and essential means to making good wines. And that can work in a variety of ways.

I'll be looking forward to the long commentary after Passover.

 Remy Charest on April 19, 2008 02:51 PM

Lower sulfur levels alone do not make a wine BIO. BIO starts in the vineyard, usually at least five years before the wine is on the market. The author is a paid lobbyist for the producers of millions of hectoliters of wine from a specific region and thus by definition not objective. He is simply trying to create doubt in the quality of small producer French wine, his competition, with not facts or data...completely unsubstantiated claims.

France has a competitive advantage in this area. Many small, quality wine producers in other areas are negociant businesses; they purchase fruit. They don't control the viticulture to much degree. There are not thousands of small family run vineyards of 5-15 hectares in the regions of New World who control quality from earth to bottle. If these vigneron reduce yields, chemicals, increase quality and thus produce quality wines of character, there isn't much of an equivalent product elsewhere, and certainly not as interesting.

 Eric on April 20, 2008 08:25 AM

Eric reminds us of the obvious that we forget. It all starts in the vineyard. Carefully tended vines give good fruit, good fruit doesn't need a lot of finagling with, ergo low spoof quotient.

That's a tad oversimplified but it does seem to be a truism that a lot of winemakers forget.

Thanks for a nice holiday post, AF. Gut yontif.

 Terry Hughes on April 21, 2008 01:29 AM

The trend over the last 50 years has been to industrialize agriculture, turning farms into factories and winegrowing is no exception. Foods and beverages, in many ways, have become nothing more than commodities- a series of inputs, most of which are chemical or artificial manipulations, are added up to create a consumable output. These wines, at best, are designed to have very specific flavors, much like a soft drink. In response to this trend, many winegrowers are revolting by creating wines that they believe are without the addition of human inputs. This opposite trend also ignores that agriculture is in and of itself a human technology. Many of these wines are certainly interesting, but there flavors are more of a curiosity than an enjoyable drink. As Eric and Terry point out great farmers use agricultural practices that promote and maintain the natural vitality of the environment; methods that allow a vine to bear delicious fruit; and utilize techniques that preserve and maintain the complex flavors of the grapes.

 Anthony Nicalo on April 22, 2008 03:10 AM
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