ColumnExploring natural wine in the heart of Provence.

It’s the middle of July. The Provencal sun is intense, and finding shade under an oak tree is of the utmost importance. The vineyards are dry, and at times dusty, but the bright green of the vines pops against the blue sky. The color is even more intense when a lavender field makes its way into the background. Sleepy small villages dot the countryside, 12^th century castles and cathedrals rise high out of the landscape. The smell of lavender hangs in the warm air.

This is the region known for peaches, apricots, honey and wine. Roadside stands offer up fresh picked fruit and down every winding road you’re sure to find at least one sign for a tasting room.

“Ah, aren’t those vines beautiful?” says my French friend and truly wine savvy friend Alain. He did five years of oenology study after all. This guy knows his wine.

The bright green leaves burst from the knobby brown vines that twist out of the ground, each one surrounded by a patch of grass. “Looks organic,” says Luc.

“How do you know that they’re organic?” I ask.

I would consider myself an amateur wine lover, and there is much to learn.

“Normally the organic vines have much more grass and greenery growing around the base. No pesticides to kill everything off,” responds Alain.

Of course. That seems simple enough. We pass another vineyard, here the vines are eerily straight and exactly the same size. There isn’t any grass to be seen. The ground underneath the green vines is clean, as if someone came through recently with a broom. The difference to the last vineyard is visually quite clear.

In the quaint town of Seguret we stop at the tasting room of Domaine de Pourra, one that Alain ensures is a good bet. The white wine is complex, thick, and has nothing to do with any white wine I have ever tasted in the United States. The red, a small-run production made predominantly with Syrah grapes is smooth but strong, and the after taste is sweet. Try to describe these wines and you’ll have a difficult time; there is a lot going on in each bottle.

Here in this region there are plenty of viticulteurs, and among them a handful of organic. But if you know your wines, you’ll know that it’s not just about the regular labels.

Natural wine has been on the market for quite sometime, and in France it is popular with the same crowd that believes in buying local and seasonal; but in the United States has, for a long time, gone under the radar.

I once heard an explanation of natural wine that likened it to an heirloom tomato. You can go to the supermarket and buy a perfectly round, red tomato and you know exactly the taste you will get. Or you can buy an heirloom tomato, a fruit that is rich, diverse, and whose taste can be completely different depending on which variety you end up with. In a good heirloom tomato, picked fresh from the garden, you can almost taste the soil it was grown in. Such is the case with natural wines, drinks that pay homage to their terroir, and are always a little different with each season, and sometimes even, bottle.

“Natural wine?” you say, “isn’t all wine natural?”

Well, yes. But much like most things that we consume, wine has become hugely industrialized, big name vineyards producing large amounts that can be exported around the world. Profit and production go hand in hand, and costs are minimized and output is maximized. That’s how the world works in the global economy after all.

But there are still small productions, especially in wine heavy cultures like France, and in the wine industry, just like in agriculture and the food industry, there is a return to a production more artisan; the craft of making something, and making it well. We see it in cheese, in honey, in olives. A love for the production of something, making it as it should be made, a return to a more natural process, one where human interference is minimized and the raw elements are allowed to do what they do best.

Grown in organic, low-yield vineyards, and harvested by hand, one of the main differences between them and a more traditional wine is that you have none or very little sulfur added to the end product. Although naturally occurring during the winemaking process, it has become standard to add in even more sulfur so that the wine preserves better.

A natural wine doesn’t necessarily mean a better wine, just like an organic label won’t always ensure better taste, but choosing one means choosing a product that is made as it should be, with passion and commitment to bottling one of nature’s most amazing libations. In fact, many winemakers won’t even mention the word “natural”; for them it is simply a question of making good wine. Which means knowing your winemaker, knowing the region and knowing your grapes. That’s the kind of research any food lover should be able to get behind.

At the end of the day we drive to the base of the Dentelles, a top spot for climbers and a popular hike for the view over the landscape. It’s quiet and blazing hot, we’re comforted by the shade of the trees. Near the trailhead, on just the other side of the gravel parking area there is a vineyard. The vines are twisted and knobby, plenty of grass underneath them. They seem to stretch for miles, happy to be soaking in the warm sun.

“Pourra,” says Alain.

Farm to table, vineyard to glass. The process is almost as beautiful as the drink itself.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Images: Anna Brones

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A trip to France’s Loire valley in search of natural wines.

It may be easier to describe French natural wines and how they are made by enumerating what they are not. They are not from overly tilled soil and chemically controlled plants, nor are they sulfite-infused, homogenous concoctions, they do not include obligatory filtration, and they are not symbolic of any new approach to wine making itself. What natural wines are is quite simple- they are wine as it should be, wine at it’s most natural.

France’s Loire Valley is home to a group of winemakers who challenge the practices of the modern day agricultural and viticultural industry by creating a product that eschews additives that are a crutch for so many industrial-sized wineries. Embracing the ancient tradition of wine making and accepting the challenges that come along with an artisanal (non-industrial) approach, these winemakers are part of a growing movement to bring nature back to vineyards and wine glasses across the country and around the world.

Unlike some wine growing regions I’ve visited in the States, the Touraine is not a large expanse of carefully manicured vineyards, but a diverse stretch of woods, prairies, farms, and goat ranches with patches of vineyards scattered throughout. French winemakers who are aware of the advantages of biodiversity welcome every wildflower and weed found in this fertile land.

Recently I had the pleasure of discovering this region. My first “natural” vineyard visit was to Domaine des Maisons Brulées where Michel Augé gave me a crash course in the importance of native plants and the role they play. “Nature hates emptiness,” Michel told me as he pointed out the greenery that he let fill in the spaces between his vines. We then came upon a variety of clover that is known to add nitrogen to impoverished soil, “Where there is a lack of something, nature finds a remedy,” he explained.

Humility and respect for nature were part and parcel in the early days of winemaking, but the eventual industrialization of viticulture led to producers craving control over nature and the winemaking process. Thus sulfites were introduced, allowing for the manipulation of wine and its homogenization.

In the world of natural wines, sulfites are considered unnecessary and largely taboo. At Domaine des Maisons Brulées, no sulfites are added to the wine and any sulfite level that may be found in their vintages is a naturally occurring by-product of the fermentation process. Michel Augé describes the role of sulfites in wine as that of an “antiseptic” and cites their affects on the taste, as well as the digestibility, of wine as two major reasons to avoid their use.

After a tour of the vineyards, Michel’s wife, Béatrice, joined us to taste the fruits of their labor. Swirling a Herdeleau Pinot Noir-Gamay-Pineu d’Aunis in our glasses, Michel recounted how Béatrice inspired him to change from chemically treating his plants to going au naturel. Béatrice modestly refused to accept credit saying, “we were both ready for the change” describing their switch to natural wine making in 1992 she said, “it was the right time and we were just open to it.”

Once it hits your mouth, a truly natural wine has an immediate, but not fleeting, affect. While tasting the Herdeleau Michel recited an adage that is well-known amongst natural wine makers: “If you’re not ready to spend twenty seconds to really taste natural wine, then it’s not worth tasting it.” In order to really taste natural wine, you must savor the initial burst of flavor as it hits your tongue, then wait a moment as that flavor calms down and eventually comes back and hits you towards the back of your mouth- an incredibly satisfying aftershock.

“I don’t want to trivialize any part of the process,” Michel told me in a decisive tone, “making natural wine is a way of putting the system back in its place.” The couple’s commitment to this cause is no doubt aided by the daily reminder that their vineyards offer of the history of the region, their plot of land offers a breathtaking view of a valley that has been largely unchanged since the 11th century.

A little ways down the road, at La Lunotte, Christophe Foucher described his winemaking philosophy, “It isn’t for me to fight against nature” Christophe explained, adding “I want to do as little as possible.”

Christophe aims to keep his vineyards to a manageable size and to be able to live off the work he does. “Once you have a large-scale vineyard, you’re obligated to become industrial,” Christophe explained adding that he would much rather be a part of the small movement of wine makers in France who work outside of the industrial system.

“I hate monoculture” he told me as we visited a neighboring vineyard that had been treated with Round Up, a popular weed and grass killer. Chemically treated plants, Christophe explained, “have a simulated taste that they should have naturally- it’s superficial.”

Both Michel and Christophe are able to talk freely of eventualities that frighten most growers, and humans in general; life and death, success and failure, errors and lessons learned the hard way. They speak of these unavoidable experiences without regret or fear. Their open-armed embrace of the process of making natural wine, and the fact that this type of wine making immediately excludes them from the system of mass-production of wines, takes the pressure off the process and frees them to be creative, curious, and realistic in their relationship with nature.

I ended my trip to the Touraine region in Christophe’s front yard, sipping Les P’tites Vignes Sauvignon and a Sparkling Rosé, the range of flavors and their longevity in la bouche still a thrill I was far from getting over. I felt reluctant to leave this source of such extraordinary wines and discoveries, not quite ready to move on yet. And the wine, I asked Christophe, when do you know when it’s ready? Without stopping to think he responded,”It just comes naturally.”

Image: Emily Dilling

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