Defending Dogma in Natural Wine
Of all the people to induce a choir of furies in my head, I never thought it would be James Molesworth.
The jazz-loving Wine Spectator critic posts regularly on social media, with wonderfully evocative pictures of rooftop New York and remarkably posed, if not somewhat charming, pictures of himself, glass in hand, contemplating life like a latter-day Don Draper having a moment to himself in a Napa drawing room. He seems like a nice guy.
His recent post on Instagram was an attempt to acknowledge that, while he doesn't agree with natural wine, he respects it and, yes, likes it. Great, I thought. But the more I read, the more the furies sang, until it sounded like Verdi's Dies Irae in there. I think there is a refusal from the likes of Molesworth to engage seriously with natural wine, so let's engage seriously (at his request) with him.
There should always be room for debate, he says, but, only 16 words down the line, he states that the reality is that natural wine "doesn't work". This is what natural wine fans have to contend with all the time: a reasoned demand for debate, for reconciliation, a meeting of minds over a nice glass of wine, and then the social equivalent of Molesworth flipping you – all of you – the bird. Rhetorical contradiction aside, I don't really know what wine (of any kind) "not working" actually means. Is it not wine? Can it not be drunk? Is it incapable of being appreciated? Not just one or two bottles – all of them. On what level are natural wines not functioning ACROSS THE BOARD for James? Talk about having a stifling dogma.
What does he do if he meets a fan of over-produced, over-marketed, over-capitalized pop music who tells him jazz just "doesn't work"? What happens when, in the middle of a flight of blind wines, he catches himself going for a 90+ score only to wonder if that slight turbidity in the glass means he's about to suggest a natural wine might work? Here, we actually get an answer: he doesn't consider it natural wine. In a bizarre act of denial – like your grandfather refusing to utter the word "lesbian" in any company – he doesn't consider good natural wine to actually be natural wine: "the ones I like I simply consider good, soulful wines – not natural wines". There's another Molesworth dogma – natural wine cannot be called natural and it cannot be better than good or soulful. Would we even be here if natural winemakers were making the kind of money (and, probably more to the point, had the inclination) to take out pages of advertising in Wine Spectator? These are easy points to score.
Which is a shame because, as I've said in the past, if Wine Spectator – or any publication, for that matter – were to do a one-off, special edition, entirely devoted to natural wine, it would surely be wildly popular and gain that publication a slice of demographic hitherto closed to them. I don't know where the advertising revenue would come from – which probably gets to the crux of it – but there it is.
Let's get back to this intolerant undertone in Molesworth's post, though. Because it's there, just under the surface, simmering away to a degree that makes me want to accuse him of base trolling (he knows a post on natural wine will "bring in the crazies" to borrow a phrase my lovely editor once used) and a repressed disgust that I can only compare to an upper-class dinner party being told one of their number is going on a timeshare holiday. He likes natural wines because they are "less complicated" and lower in alcohol. Their labels are "among the most creative and whimsical in the business". Siri, what is an example of damning with faint praise?
According to Molesworth, natural wine "presupposes that its way is better than any other way of winemaking". It presupposes no such thing. Sure, a lot of natural wine aficionados make it sound like natural wine is the best way to make wine (some even say it), but the only real presupposition involved is in our estimation of the word "natural". I know what Molesworth is saying – most of us do – and, critically, so do most natural wine producers. A lot of us (yes, "us") make wines with minimal intervention and yet remain uncomfortable with the use of the word "natural". For this reason, some prefer to call it "living" wine, some prefer not to look for a catch-all phrase. Many of those in the movement agree with James – some might even call themselves "good" or "soulful" wines ...
Furthermore, what if people were making these wines not to be holier than thou but because (a) these were wines they enjoyed drinking themselves and (b) these were the kind of wines they wanted to make? Is it a "dogma" as such? A self-imposed dogma is what in winemaking we call a protocol – and it would be rare to find a winery, from Gallo to Ganevat, that doesn't have some idea of how it is going to make its wine.
But he's also right that dogma is problematic in natural winemaking – at its most basic, your natural stance can prohibit intervention that would lead to bottling a "better" wine – but let's be a bit more honest here: it's no more dogmatic (probably less so) than conventional winemaking, which degrades beautiful Viognier by blending it into bulk rosé because it hasn't reached the required Brix levels for ripeness, which cannot concieve of allowing oxygen to come into contact with the juice and the wine, which cannot conceive of a wine going to bottle that hasn't had been filtered sterile, and so on.
And we really should address this accusation of being somehow holier than thou because there are reasons why producers are taking a stand. Molesworth and a lot of others don't like the sanctimonious bent of the natural wine crowd – but we should be careful to discern between sanctimony and genuine concern. The two departments in France with the highest rate of pesticide use are the Marne (Champagne) and the Gironde (Bordeaux). Out of the whole of France, remember. And don't tell me the wine industry isn't playing a role in that.
It's easy to post playful pictures of oneself in an artisanal wine shop and bait natural wine fans, but your kids don't stand waiting for a school bus while the wind blows the unknown spray from the vineyard into their faces. I live in a wine region and have cycled to work through spraydrift. Believe me, it's a relief when it smells of sulfur. I know viticulturists who refuse to get in a tractor to spray products on a vineyard because their driving cab isn't sealed.
Should we not limit what we think are egregious practices? And if limits or bans on such products are not placed at international, domestic and regional levels, should we not live up to certain ideals ourselves and have a personal "dogma" not to use them? Is not the responsibility, at the lowest level, on the individual? Should such stands not be accorded perhaps a little more respect, even if one doesn't want to use the word "natural" or thinks that notions of quality excuse all acts in the vineyard and winery?
Let's move on. The classic play against Natural wines is to hold them to almost ludicrous levels of comparison. Molesworth pulls out Chave and Château Palmer as counterpoints, saying that while their credentials are close to natural, "neither is allowed in the natural wine club". Without mentioning that they probably never asked, wanted or consider themselves to be part of the club, let alone addressing the fact that there isn't a club, and certainly not one that can agree on membership. But let's be indulgent and magnamanious and allow Château Palmer and Jean-Louis Chave into the natural wine movement. What then? By implication, are they now to only ever attain the level of "good", or "soulful", right? That's a scary admission from someone with a duty to be open-minded in judgement. (As an aside, I'm assuming "good" is 85 points at best... soulful probably tips a 92, right?)
Of course, he doesn't compare an amphora-aged skinsy white wine to an overworked, overoaked, limpid Chardonnay, or an industrially produced Pinot Grigio with no discernable interest. What he wants – and I hear this a lot – is purity of expression: "I want to drink wines that speak of their origin and varietal". Which is fine. And yet every person I hear say this puts their best wines away in a cellar for decades to "develop" with age.
But develop what? A wine's natural primary fruit and structure is there from the beginning. If that's the only reason one drinks wine, there's no reason to age it. The whole point of buying expensive wines and aging them is that the secondary and tertiary characters we gain from age take the wines away from their basic fruit profile to create more interesting aromas and flavors. The kind of interesting you get from making wines without sulfur, or in amphoras, or on skins for a year. And natural wines do still show a sense of place – an Alexandre Bain wine shows all the racy acidity of its region, even if it's not allowed to call itself Pouilly-Fumé. All while his neighbors will think nothing of adding granulated sunshine (sugar) in cooler years. That's what a sense of place gives you.
There's nothing really new in what Molesworth says – it's a rehash of so much that has already been said of natural wines, not least about "dogma". But it strikes me that the intransigence is on the other side of the fence.
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