Natural Wine: It’s Alive!

to do nothing. And the ambient yeast that is on your skin, in your hair, in the air, and pretty much everywhere will come into contact with the grape juice. And the juice for now is just fruit juice. It's sweet and sugar filled. Now, yeast, yeast love sugar, and immediately begin happily munching all of it. Now, of course, after we eat, we also create byproduct, and the same is true for the magical yeast. But thereby product is carbon dioxide and ethanol, which is better known as alcohol.

So from this moment on there are decisions to be made about how to raise the wine, and one decision that could be made is whether to do anything else at all. And when the choice to do nothing in both the vineyard where the grapes are grown or in the cellar where the wine is made, that decision to do nothing is called non interventionist winemaking, or more commonly, natural wine. Nothing added, nothing taken away. We turn now

to our producer, Selene. Selene is in Berkeley, California, embarking on a guided wine tasting with a fabulous natural winemaker, Jared Brandt of Donkey and Goat Winery. I'm at Donkey and Goat Winery and where they're making award winning red and white blends of natural wine. So I think when you when you taste, and one of the beauties of blind tasting, it's really hard to get the grapes of rital right. I'm chatting with Jared Brandt, who's the co

owner and co winemaker, chaste it. Yeah, I was gonna say it's it's it's merlot of all things. It tastes like there's definitely a cider component. I get that. So it's a petrol lot natural now or a pet gnat, which means what we did is why it was fermenting. We bottled it, so it does have bubbles, not a lot of bubbles, and instead of adding sugar to make the bubbles and yeast, we just use the naturally occurring sugar in the grapes like we do it. Why it's fermenting.

It reminds me a little bit of like a cherry jolly rancher, Like there's a cherry and also like a candied apple, like you know those apples that you get like dipped in caramel. I guess it's not candy to apple. It's a caramel apple. I get like that kind of flavor. There's definitely like a the apple. Yeah, it's really clear to me. Is natural wine more connected to tear war did The idea of not manipulating the wine, which I think is called a natural wine, is very specif to

the ter war. If you're not trying to kind of change the flavor profile or enhance it, what the land gave you in the grapevines gave you should hopefully come

through in the in the glass. We got started doing skin mass rated white wines because we had a vineyard where it was very hard to get the grapes to go the wine to go dry naturally because of the deficit of nutrients when you pressed it off the skins immediately, and if you left it on the skins, it would go dry in fifteen days instead of like a year. And so to me, it's more ter war specific because you don't have to do any manipulation to get it to go dry. But I think that's kind of a

a debate. Um, we do do a lot of foot stopping where we want to give it a light skin contact. Um, so like we'll foot stop it like at eight am and then at twelve o'clock will press it off, and so that gives it some of the tannins from the skins, but it's not over the top. And and feet are

really great. I mean, it's kind of a miraculous thing, which is hard to replicate because like your foot actually has a lot of pressure, but at the same time, the pad of your foot is soft, so you can't break seeds, and so like if you're trying to to break up a grade, but you don't want any of the heart seeds, how harsh tannins in them, I'm not sure you can really do it mechanically, Like you get rollers, but they're not really that soft and you see broken seeds.

But if you do it with your foot. You don't never see that. And then in top of it gets even more complex if you do the stem. If you run a stem through a roller to break it up, it breaks it up all the way and you get all these weird, harsh, really green flavors more than anything else. If you do that same process with a foot, you don't get those. Can you share your thoughts in perspective about natural wine movement in California and has it been

well received? So this is a two fold answer for me, because we have been making wine in the same style since two thousand and three in California and two thousand two we did in France. So until two thousand, probably probably eleven or twelve, California hated it. Californias were into very big, right, highly manipulated wine and being an overly general, giant generalization. But there was years where we sold more

wine in Sweden than we did in California. And I think in general, Californians at that stage and the wine industry in general in the United States was really seeking these really big wines and to successfully the kind of the components of making a really big red they typically had a little bit of residual sugar, and so as a result, they couldn't be made naturally because if you left the residual sugar on them and you didn't do

something to stabilize it chemically effectively, it would referment and bottle. So I think startying in two thousand ten eleven, there was a radical shift, and I think this is worldwide. I think a lot of people in general are more interested in authentic food too, simpler wine, knowing the producer, knowing that it wasn't it wasn't made in a factory, it was made in a chemist shop that it's made

by like you know, sun and water and soil. Napa's is weird anomally, like we work with organic vineyards and there's very few organic vineyards of NAPPA. And it's this anomaly to me because like they have infinite money. Um and maybe not right now because I think the wine markets going through a radical change, but five years ago, you know, they could sell as much wine as they made, and to be organic there's a little bit more risk. That said, I think NAPA was kind of late to

the natural wine world. Like if I thought of iconic natural wines from California, they're probably wouldn't be one from Nappa on the list. I'm Alex our next guest, Alex Sholkin and gelt Shaha, our husband and wife making wines in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. So Australia is huge, huge continent. Um Adelaide Hills. Where is it exactly and what are some notable things about Australia. So well, it's South Australia's self explanatory. Adelaide Hills isn't area I guess

around Adelaide itself slightly more elevated. There is a lot of well fair bit of grapes grown in South Australia. In fact, in Australia, every state has a nickname, and South Australia is the wine state. Within the wine state, there are a few different wine regions and Adelaide Hills

is arguably more focused towards high end grape growing. And so it happened that natural one in Australia started happening in this area, probably less than ten kilometers from where we are right now, about fifteen years ago, and the rest is history. Basically it's still it's kind of an epicenter of natural one in Australia, But of course now it's a lot, a lot wider and natural one is made in every state wherever they grow grapes, which is

every state except the Northern Territory. And I remember back in the let's say late nineties, early two thousands, UM, Australian wine had a reputation internationally of being really inexpensive, really high in alcohol, made with kind of overly ripened grapes. And of course the yellowtail explosion happened around the same time in which they became one of the largest wine brands in the world, and many other multinational wine companies were kind of chasing them and chasing this standard style

of high alcohol, kind of sweet, powerful wine. Um. Obviously that is so far away from the kind of wine that you all are making. So can you help us understand in a broader sense what the transition was that occurred in the Australian wine market over the last fifteen years. It's not unique to wine or natural wine or anything. Really happens in every aspect of life and industries and production in etcetera. Things take a direction and then they

accelerate in the duration. I guess. People get excited and then it just goes a little bit too far, and then sooner or later people start realizing that it's in fact gone too far, and then the pendulum starts moving backwards in the in the opposite direction. Right now, we're just it's just moving away from those um very extracted, very right, just the way you described wines. I wouldn't be surprised if in twenty years time we'll find ourselves in the big, big ripeness zone again. Yeah, it's a

really good point. Actually, the cyclical nature of wine consumers isn't so much about them being wine consumers but just human beings. Um So, then the point is well taken that I think is a good perspective for us to consider natural wine as kind of uh organic outgrowth or the other side of the pendulum of as you say, what the global wine market was a couple of decades ago. Um So, then, in your own words, can you all help us understand when we're talking about natural wine, what

is it that we're talking about. It's it's a bit of both. Really. When we arrived to Australia ten years ago, we didn't we were not aware of natural one and not many people friendly were. But we were we were lack enough to run into it. Basically as soon as we came here and we got really excited by that. Didn't take long for us to get stuck into it and start doing it ourselves. It's been it's only been eight years, but the idea of natural one has evolved

a lot. We have evolved a lot, and we're still figuring it out and adapting and learning. And I mean, what was it about natural wine production that felt resonant with your own ideas or sensibilities that made you want to start producing wine this way? Many of them would follow them quite phatically, whereas in our world, the only rule that we follow is that the rules do not exist. There is not a single rule that applies universally to every single wine. We try to live more sustainably in

our life. Generally speaking, we try to consume food and pretty much everything that comes in a more sustainable way. And I think that's part of this evolution of natural one. What Alex was speaking before, it's not just about the way the wine is gon and made, and it comes to furniture that you buy, and it comes to everything

pretty much. And now we're going into this mode of more handmade more produces a more self expression as well, So something that is a bit more fluid in a way, and I think it speaks to both of us in what we make. Do you sell most of your wine in Australia, We do, and that's a choice. We do export wine because we want to share I guess, our ideas and are one with the rest of the world. On the other hand, from the sustainability of point of view, we don't quite like the idea of our one accumulating

all those food miles. So I guess we try and balances. Send a bit, send a bit, but not too much. And we export to Japan, to Denmark, to Taiwan and Korea and in the US, and we actually send a favorite of wine to the US. Our distributor is a Test Bryant. When I say we send a fair bite, it's not. It's not a lot on jail scheme of things, but it is a lot for us because we don't make that much wine. Well. Test Bryant is a really

good friend of mine. I love her and I was She's actually the first person who introduced me to your wines, as she developed an entire import company here in the US based on natural winemakers from Australia. UH, And so I wasn't even aware really of the breadth of this movement in Australia until UM. I trust that you are in good hands in working with her. Have you heard, UH, how much of the discourse around natural wine uh um is kind of has this contentious or confrontational UM tone.

Is that something that is unique to the US in this moment or are you also seeing that from the press or maybe some maliers or consumers in Australia who might find the natural wine movement as perhaps frivolous UM and the best case, or maybe even UM harmful to some other producers UM in the worst case, for instance, one of the common refrains here in the States, UH is that you know, without any standards, UM, that perhaps the lack of consistency you know, among the producers who

are making wines naturally could in effect undermine UM people who have the same environ mental principles. A lack of consistency among those who make natural wine cannot undermine those who don't make natural wine, because it would, if anything, it would undermine those who do make natural wine. The way I see it, when it comes to UM, people who choose not to position themselves as natural wine, well,

we don't quite position ourselves as natural one. That's just what we do, and that's what we are very happy to explain what we do. It appears on our website in a very transparent fashion, and the word natural is not is not used there very often. So basically, in a way, natural wine is something that people would refer to our wine as, but it's not necessarily the term

we use off that often. We're really not trying to undermine anyone else's effort, and we do we do respect our colleagues who choose to make wine in a different way that that's perfectly fine, But we do see wine making is an art form and because of that, and mainly because of that, we really try and move away as far as we can from any standardizations, because that would be that there would do many kinds of an

art form m hm. So in summary, then you are basically saying that you know, natural wine is a term that doesn't have a rigid or standard definition. UM. Natural wine in its essence is really about a non intervening style of winemaking that adds nothing at all to the fermenting grapes. It is just the purest expression of wine without any inputs and the output being, you know, whatever

the grape has to say. Do you think that overall this natural wine movement and this language around natural wine has it been more harmful or helpful and furthering the wine drinking world and probably benefits the whole but not only the consumers but also the winemaking side, because more and more conventional winemakers would get in touch with us and just come and hang around and taste the wines, and it would be very clear that they're trying to suss out what is going on and is it really

true that we can get away with that kind of a winemaking and getting away with things is probably key here at quoting a famous person who said art is what you you can get away with, it really drives more conventional wine makers to explore those horizons further. So I think in that regard it's it's a very positive impact on the whole industry. I love that, um, but I do think that one part of it that is

not commented on enough. Gaila, you mentioned the implication being well, what is a natural wine or what are the things that are added to other wines that we might not be aware of, and as we're talking about it as a trend, it actually kind of sets up a change in consumer behavior and patterns, which in effect sets up

a change in behavior for conventional producers. But um, I believe that one of the upsides of the movement that you're speaking to is that it has actually really, in a very short amount of time, significantly shift consumer curiosity, shifted the behavior. And to hear that you now have conventional winemakers coming to you all asking about the viability of making ones naturally, I'm actually really encouraged by that outcome,

regardless of how we get there. Really, and as Jared Brandt from Donkey and Goat says, I think it's it's more like just it's just like kind of returning to an older school way of doing things with last manipulation. We'll be back next week to hear more from some olier Amanda Smelts as we continue our exploration and learn about what natural wine is, how it's made, and importantly what it represents. I'll also be taking you on a

journey very special and personal to me. We will go to the birthplace of natural wine, which is in fact the birthplace of wine itself. And then I will lead you on a special tasting to share with you what I've learned throughout my career as a recovering samlier and you can sample and enjoy a glass of wine along with me. So stay tuned for next week's episode of

Point of Origin. Yeah, thank you to all of our guests today on the show, to Jared Brandt and Alex Schulkin and Galite Shaff in the Adelaide Hills of Australia special. Thanks to my business partner who makes all things possible at Whetstone, are co founder Melissa she Thanks mel. Thank you to Selene Glazier, who is our lead producer. To Cat Hong our editor, to Havin Obasa Lassa and Quentin Lebou our production interns. To our friends at iHeart Radio

for helping us bring you this podcast. To Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer, engineer J. J. Pauseway and executive producer Christopher Hasiotis. I'm your host, the Origin Forager Steven Saderfield, and we will be back here next week with more from Whetstone Magazine's Point of Origin podcast