Reyneke Organic Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, Western Cape, South Africa 2021 (£10.99, Waitrose) As someone who loves a lot of the wines that get grouped together as “natural wine”, I’m often taken aback by how much rage this loosely defined genre, with its (near) zero-tolerance attitude to winemaking additives, inspires. I’ve heard complaints about how the wines are weird, dirty, mousy, or farmyardy in restaurants and bars, at wine trade events, and when I’ve poured “natural” wines for friends. But the prejudice seems to be so widespread now it even cropped up amid the gentle blokey banter on a recent episode of the Guardian’s Football Weekly. For me, it’s all reminiscent of the way people used to talk about organic wine, which, back in the 2000s, was often seen as being good for the earth, but bad for the palate. Natural winemakers might take heart from the fact, then, that organic is these days an unquestioned part of the mainstream, and even a marker of quality for some – an assumption that is perfectly justified in the case of Reyneke’s lushly inviting Cape claret.
M Chapoutier Combe Pilate Viognier, IGP Collines Rhodaniennes, France 2022 (from £15, thevinorium.co.uk frazierswine.co.uk; ndjohn.co.uk) My own position on natural wine is that it’s the next logical step from organics: if you’re not using chemicals in the vineyards, then it makes sense to try to avoid them in the winery. Like all wines, there are good and bad examples – it all comes down to the talent and application of the winemaker and the quality of the fruit they get to work with. And when it comes to the good bottles, I’d rather write them up as “wines” like any other, rather than singling them out as “natural” – it’s funny how many more people will enjoy natural wines when they’re not alerted to the fact (many more, I think, than there are drinkers who will only drink natural). It’s a similar story with biodynamics, the cosmic form of agriculture that requires its adherents to bury cow horns filled with manure in their fields and time their work to the astral and lunar calendar, and which, despite my reservations about the absence of science behind it, is used to make so many of my favourite wines – such as Chapoutier’s gorgeously fresh yet fleshy honeysuckle-and-apricot scented white.
Orsogna Padami DOP Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Italy 2022 (£14.50, vintageroots.co.uk) Michel Chapoutier is one of the world’s most vocal advocates of biodynamics. But he is no one’s idea of a small producer (he’s one of the biggest producers in the Rhône Valley and has interests elsewhere in France and overseas), and his wines are perfectly conventional – frequently delicious as they are, I’m not sure anyone would be able to say “these are biodynamic” in a blind tasting. The same is true of the case of organic and biodynamic red wines sent to me recently by one of the key players in the mainstreaming of organic and biodynamic wine in the UK over the past couple of decades: the organic specialist importer and supplier, Vintage Roots. The company sent me seven wines, of which the highlights for me were the softly plummy, sweetly oaked, superb value Orsogna Padami Montepulciano and the stylishly perfumed and slinky Domaine Bousquet Reserve Malbec, Mendoza 2022 (£15.50) – tasted blind, all of them could act as ambassadors to persuade any remaining sceptics about the merits of organic and biodynamic (if not, in this case, natural) wine.
