Natural

An organic vineyard in Spring

Can a wine be natural ? For that matter can a vine or a vineyard be natural ? Neither are really.

Grapes on their own or even grape juice on its own would rarely if ever produce something resembling wine without human intervention. The propensity of grape juice is to turn to vinegar if one is not very careful, and this is what happened no doubt in the past. First discovery, vinegar. And very useful it is too. Then one day a certain yeast got to work on the must and produced a fascinating alcoholic drink. The water became wine. The human winemaker has been seeking to reproduce and refine this process for thousands of years now, by and large successfully. The natural part of this process is the action of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae selected for its ability to ferment reliably, stand up to relatively high alcohol and temperatures (thereby out competing other yeasts for access to the sugary juice) and provide some protection for the finished liquid as a by process. How natural is that ? Reasonably so, as long as that is all that happens and no other additives are used, except patience and letting the wine be.

The vineyard itself looks like nothing other than a very large garden. In modern times the vines themselves have become clones grafted on to various rootstocks provided by vine varieties conferring pest and disease resistance to the vine roots. Choice of grape variety and rootstock are all important for the success of the vineyard, and this does not happen by chance or over eons of evolution. The varieties found in most vineyards have been selected by growers because of their particular qualities, the rootstocks used to combat pests such as Phylloxera devastatrix or excesses and deficiencies of the soil. Typical problems of monoculture. Hence the need to foster biodiversity in all its forms in the vineyard and to ensure the soil can support healthy plants able to defend themselves. If not beware pests of all kinds and the doors are opened to chemistry in all its forms to provide protection.

There is not much that is natural in any part of the process of making a bottle of wine but lightness of touch and logical organic principles (in fact the oldest forms of non-chemical agriculture) can bring us closer to that mythical beast, a natural wine, the elixir of the Earth. Drink the Earth and drink to the Earth.