I use the same headline every year for my Thanksgiving post.

And every year there are more quality natural wines, from more diverse places, made by producers I’ve never drank before, showing new innovations and at better prices.

There has simply never been a better time in history to be alive and be a lover of wine. We are so very lucky in this respect.

This year with the help of my good friends Ariana from Chambers Street Wines and Christy from Frankly Wines, I think I nailed it.

Truly outstanding wines from Oregon, Quebec, France, Sicily and Spain. With a splash of mead thrown in.

Here’s the selection:

Terroir Historic (Terroir Al Límit) 2015 Priorat Negre ($28.99)

The crowd favorite red this holiday.

Dominik Huber is a truly talented German winemaker making restrained natural reds and whites in the Priorat, in Spain.

Much less ripe that you’d expect, significantly reduced alcohol and making not a wine of place, but a wine of region. This bottle is a blend from a scattering of organic plots with telltale llicorella clay and alluvial soils of the Priorat.

Tightly wound acids, brambly herbal berries. As Ariana Rolich put it well, ‘a Priorat for minimalists’.

To me the bottle simply says Drink Me now!

Partida Creus 2015 Catalunya Massís de Bonastre Xarello ($29.99)

This was the crowd favorite white. Basically vanished in a moment.

We know the grape Xarello from Spanish Cavas, but was new2me as a still wine.

This is simply a head-nodding beautiful bottle–mineral rich, bright, citrus, nteresting and juicy at the same time.

This one is naturally a bit wild, no added SO2, and six months on the lees. Some time on the skins is obvious through the grip of the tannins and bouquet.

I’m buying a magnum for the Chanukah gathering of the same group.

Buy and try this if you can find it.

Swick Wines 2014 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir  ($27.99)

Joe Swick and I have spoken in depth about natural wine. He is outspoken, so very wine savvy, an uncompromising purist and 5^th generation Oregonian from Portland.  And need I mention, a true talent.

This bottle is a silky, textured and brambly Pinot, sourced from several cooler Willamette Valley sites (Cancilla, Medici, and Fairsing vineyards). A light touch with a satisfying palate that leaves you with berries on the mouth, savory in the nose, and just satisfying all over.

I’ve been drinking this bottle over and over since its release.

Feels just right each time.

Joe nailed it with this one.

Romeo del Castello 2015 Etna Rosato Vigorosa ($28)

I had the pleasure of meeting Rosanna Romeo and her daughter Chiara Vigo when in Etna a number of years ago.

I remember well their story of how the eruption of Mt. Etna in 1981 reduce 60 hectares of vines to 14 and left huge lava beds on their property.

This wine speaks to me of my love of Etna and my pining to return.

That unique taste that even in a rose is vibrant and savory, bright and acidic with a crisp finish and a spice to the aftertaste that simply won’t end.

Delicious bottle that was a perfect complement to the others at the table. I kept this one near to me the entire meal.

Source du Ruault 2013 Saumur Blanc “La Coulee d’ Aunis” ($17)

I knew this wine the least prior to drinking it. Quite a discovery.

Comes from a tiny one-hectare parcel of Chenin Blanc of almost entirely Turounien Limestone in the Loire Valley.

Perfect pre-meal, hanging around nibbling while cooking and chatting. It is lean, mineral with a silky suppleness to it that that drew me in immediately.

A bit too austere for the group, but I grabbed and nursed this one myself.

A discovery and a huge bargain at $17.

I have another one in the fridge for for some saw goat cheese I picked up at the market today.

Desrochers–Foehn Ferme Apicole Honey Wine ($37)

This is a completely natural Pet Nat mead from Northern Quebec.

Unfiltered. Unfined. No added SO2 with the yeasts cultivated from the pollens collected from the same bees that brought in the honey for this bottle.

I met the winemaker and apiarist at my panel at the Raw Fair a few weeks ago and tracked this bottle down.

As intriguing as it is delicious. Clearly not a wine made from grapes and as a beekeeper years ago, I could taste the honey in the aftertaste though it is completely dry and magically satisfying.

Super natural in every way. Twelve months on the lees, non dosage, nothing added.

Not only does this winemaker have real talent but he is certainly part of a new generation that will I am certain redefine what natural means to all of us.

Try this or the other wines linked to in the post of my panel.

I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

To close

Been a while since I threw together a post on what I’ve been drinking, rather than spit out bottle pics on Instagram

This was more fun and more useful.

I hope you enjoyed it. I am certain you will enjoy the wine!

Most people head to Mexico and drink Mojitas.

We mixed up a few, but for our annual family Spring Break in Tulum, it’s about wine and the natural best at that.

Tulum is all about being in the zone. Wonderful, refreshing and not-your-standard fare is the rule.

The setting:

Hot and humid to the max. Hammocks under the palms. Fish and more fish on the grill. Tacos of every sort. Cerviche and guacamole every day.

Basically anything you can wrap in a banana leave and put in grilled flatbread.

The wine:

Interesting is the rule. Delicious is the grade.

This year we nailed it. The most diverse and varied, the most economical and the most natural.

Best twelve beach pack ever.

I’ll recap with an eye towards choices over time. They are all winners.

–>Three choices from the Jura

Evelyne and Pascal Clairet from Domaine de la Tournelle in Arbois stole the show with their 2010 Terre de Gryphées Chardonnay ($27). Those who say that the Jura is an acquired taste are just plain wrong.

This chard is as unique and terroir-expressive as it is delicious. Wine geek or no, this is a head nodder with undeniable satisfaction.

Second year running on the Poulsard side was Ludwig Bindernagel’s 2010 Les Chais du Vieux Bourg ($34). This German newcomer to the Jura just nails it. Light with a rich body, layered and lovely, a larger than life bouquet for such a delicate wine.

Puffeney made the cut this trip. His 2011 Les Berangeres Trousseau ($35) was the third Jura bottle. The family loved it. I found it a bit  austere with a hard edge but quaffable nonetheless.

–>A touch of Sicily and anfora with Giusto Occhipinti’s COS Pithos

COS makes the trek yearly. The 2012 COS Pithos IGT ($31) Cerrasuolo Frappato/Nero D’Avola blend was as expected–delicious and unassuming.

Lightly chilled, delicate and satisfying are its hallmarks. Giusto is the first winemaker I ever tasted that fermented in Anfora and a personal hero and friend. This wine nails it in just about every category

–>Gruner from Nikolaihof is as good as it gets

I love this vineyard. Natural. Bio-D. Ancient. As crisp and unique a Gruner Veltliner as you can find. This year (the third appearance of Nikolaihof) we switched to the 2012 Hefeabzug Gruner Veltliner ($25). A winner.

–>More bubbles make the cut

Bubbles are an occasion in their own right. Two bottles made the trip with us.

The first Cava to cross the border was the 2011 Raventos i Blanc de Nit Rose Brut Conca Del Riu Anoia ($22). Elegant, smokey citrus from the Monastrell grape. We had it with a breakfast/brunch on the first morning. Yum!

The Filaine NV Brut ler Cru Damery Cuvee Speciale ($49) was the priciest of the bottles and a special treat. Creamy and classical. A Pinot Noir/ Chardonnay/ Pinot Meunier blend of 2009 and 2010 grapes was oh so ripe and finely moused and bubbly crisp. This was brought for a birthday and it crushed expectations.

–>A bit of Alpine Savoie at the Mexican seaside

I’ve fallen hard to this region, the producers and varietals. I could have brought a half case of just these whites.

I tasted with Gonon recently and his 2012 Vin de France Chasselas Vieilles Vignes ($25) is well—a dream. Subtle and herbal with smacks of fruit. I so love this bottle. So did everyone.

I’m a long-term Belluard fan. His 2012 Grandes Jorasses Altesse ($34) is fresh, mineral, crips, light and delicious. I had sent this bottle as presents earlier in the year. It’s a family tradition already.

Next to the Jura–in fact Savoie is Jura adjacent–this is fast becoming my favorite region.

–>New world naturalists make the trip

A first for this vacations–an Oregon Pinot Noir and a California Grenache/Mourvedre blend.

I tasted the 2009 Montebruno Eola-Amity Hills Pinot Noir ($25) with the winemaker Joe Pedicini earlier in the year. Bio-D, a light effervescence and deep flavor are its traits. Served lightly chilled in water glasses on the terrace overlooking the sea was a crowd pleaser.

Hank Beckmyer from La Clarine Farms is a favorite of mine for the brilliance and ease of his wines. A Grenache and Morvedre blend at km 9.2 in Tulum? I say, hell yes!

The 2012 Sierra Josephine & Mariposa ($25) is a beautifully balanced and structured, tannin-laden bottle. I did chill it slightly and with some home made Quesadillas and Cerviche, it was a killer.

Not a hint of sulfur added in these. Not a touch of funk. Freaking lovely natural wines!

–>Wrapping up with a Cotes de Provence Rose

From the selections of my friend David Lillie was a Les Fouques 2012 Aubigue Rose ($13!).

This blend of Cinsault, Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, is almost pale white, shot with pepper, light on the palate, dreamy on the nose and perfect on the hammock.

Small producers all.

These wines are very small productions and go in and out of stock. Some are available at Chambers Street Wines and online through other small specialty shops. Shop the producer if not the vintage.

I will wager a free bottle on me for long-term readers that these will delight.

A thank you to my friends Sophie Barrett and Ariana Rolich of Chambers Street Wines for making the process of choosing almost equal to the drinking.

 

Some photos to capture the joy of this place along with the wine.

Daily feast.

Playtime in between resting and sipping.

Hammock is up and to the right.

Natural wine is a simple yet powerful idea.

It’s the belief that an organic and non-interventionist approach to winemaking can create wine that expresses terroir in a truer fashion, is more interesting to the palate, more complimentary with food and, of course, healthier for the individual and the environment.

2011 was about figuring out whether this really rung true to me.

Whether this is a niche of consequence as well as interest. Whether when orchestrated in the hands of a master winemaker, it creates a product of quality as well as uniqueness. And whether we are entering an era where the economics of the artisanal winemaker combined with the reach of the web is a possible disruptor and game changer for the wine world.

Natural wine has been a passion of mine for a while now and this blog is an homage to the winemakers I respect the most.

Friends and neighbors are hard pressed to escape the tastings and stream of stories about the flavors and bouquets of Trousseaus and Poulsards from the magical vineyards of the Jura. The rich and layered Mencias and Garnachas produced from the ancient terraces hanging over the River Sil in Ribiera Sacra. The Frappatos and Nero D’Avolas grown in volcanic ash on the smoky slopes of Mt Etna in Sicily.

These deep natural pockets of organic and biodynamic winemaking, in 2011, became part of a much longer list of true natural winemaking legends in Friuli, Beaujolais, Manchuela, the Canary Islands, Champagne, the Loire Valley…everywhere they make wine.

There is always a short list of the best of the best, but this approach to winemaking has not only been happening quietly for generations in every winemaking region but is part of a global renaissance of a non-interventionist approach to making natural wine.

There are many like Jean Bourdy in the Jura who have been making wine on their family farms for scores of generations. And many more in areas like Ribeira Sacra, who are returning to ancestral terraces, cut by the Romans 2000 years ago, tended for generations then abandoned till just now.

But most important to me this year was getting to know a few of these winemakers as real people. My visits with Friulian iconoclast Fulvio Bressan especially in Trieste and Sandi Skerk in Carso were wildly exhilarating and provoking.

Attending tastings with natural wine rock stars like Philippe Bornard, Jean Bourdy Luis Rodriguez and Eric Texier was to understand the passion and humility of these individuals. They eschewed labels to a person yet spoke their own individual language that in concept, was common across all of them. These are individuals driven by intense emotions and their success is attributable to drive, self-belief and extraordinary skill.

The validity of natural winemaking doesn’t lie with its definition.

Artisanal, organic, biodynamic, sustainable and natural all bump into each other as parts of a new way of looking at an ancient tradition of winemaking. To some it’s tradition carried forth. To some a revolution of change. None of this speaks to quality but it does speak to a promise and an approach.

I wasted too much time this year arguing with wine journalists jockeying for definition and defensive of their own roles as taste makers in the hard-wired reality of the wine world today.

Labels on bottles are important certainly. Certification as assurance of credibility is critical. But these labels and certifications don’t create the reality, they codify it.

Our local shops and specialty importers are doing this job now, and well. Over time, this will move online and the category of natural or artisanal will be a first door on a search or referral funnel to finding what you like under this general contextual umbrella.

The response from the industry to the categories of natural and biodynamic is a bit too shrill to ignore. The percent of grapes grown organically or biodynamically is really small. The same with the overall revenue numbers of what is sold under this broad definition.

So…what’s going on?

Can a farmer like Christian Ducroux making wondrous no sulfer-added, 100% natural Beaujolais on his tiny 4-hectare vineyard on the hillside above the village of Regni-Durette in France really threaten the wine world?

Stangely, I think so.

Although Ducroux makes delicious wine of the highest quality, he does so in the most petite of vineyards, off the economic grid mostly with a lifestyle intent.

While there are huge variations in the definition of what constitutes natural—chaptalization, natural yeasts, filtration, sulfur not to mention vineyard practices–really wonderful wine that truly is an expression of terroir can be the result. When it’s in a goblet swirling rhythmically, it’s superfood for the soul, enthralling with bouquet, smile inducing and head nodding satisfaction when it all comes together.

This is where this gets interesting.

The most low tech (no tech actually), natural approach to making  wondrous wine is being made possible as business reality and a consumer connection by a platform of technical sophistication never before available.

The culture of the consumer has shifted on a global basis. It is not the exception to be eco-aware, health conscious, artisan supportive and curiously adventurous in seeking out new places, foods, cultures, people…and wine.

The social web has established the reality of the global local and the power of the niche to stand alone or as part of a marketplace. It has empowered the consumer, democratized information and distribution for industry after industry. It was made real the possibilities of marketplaces and given voice and commercial weight to the niche, the authentic and the unique.

I’ve blogged often about the wave of change that is sweeping our culture on how we find, purchase and consume our passions. Natural wine, defined as you will, artisanal at its very core, is part of this.

As I write this I’m sipping a truly wonderful glass of organic Malvasia from the Skerk Vineyard in Carso, Friuli, Italy. So rich and refreshing. Mineral. Vivacious. From Sandi’s cellar to my goblet. From my blog to your intent to taste I hope.

And I’m thinking of the old adage that says that the future is already here. It’s just a secret that only a few have discovered it.

To me, it’s already here and I’m living it.

Call it natural. Call it artisanal. Call it organic.

The market will decide but the connection between me in NYC and Sandi Skerk in Carso is quite real and tangible. I may have been attracted to Skerk because of his indigenous varietals, his natural approach and the magnificence of his cellar. But at the end of this string of filters, of categories, is the taste that binds.

This is a new culture of consumers demanding that the systems of discovery and distribution fit themselves to their wants. The wines are scattered in interesting pocket across the globe. The market, certainly in the states, is here.

The value chain between winemaker and consumer for natural wines is already present, like breadcrumbs scattered about. There is only that handshake between personal discovery and seamless commerce that is still wanting. And in my view, not for long.

 

A sense of place, grape, winemaker and culture are the magic of what we taste in a great wine.

The photo above is of a tiny plot of 80-year old Mencia grapes on this almost vertical slate cliff hanging just above the River Sil in Amandi in the Ribiera Sacra region of Northwestern Spain.

This vineyard was hand-terraced over 2000 years ago by the Romans to produce wine for their armies and for scores of generations, has produced wine for Ramon Losada’s family.

Ramon, the winemaker, with his assistant Gerardo Mendez, scramble over these steep terraces, moving grapes around in dumbwaiters. Sweltering in the sun, cooled by the roar of the river at their feet, they are making this wine to share with us.

This story is what I taste in this remarkable glass of 100% organic Mencia that I’m swirling in a huge goblet, evoking aromatic scents of the Galician landscape as I jot down these notes.

I’m a big fan of Ribeira Sacra (map of wine region). There is something about this isolated, obscure, landlocked region that is unique unto itself. Geographically and culturally with a common thread of passion toward these ancient vines and hillsides that permeates many of the wines I’ve tasted.

There’s historical gravity that has drawn winemakers like Ramon back to his ancestral vineyards to make wine naturally, by hand, with techniques that are not dissimilar to how they produced wine a thousand years ago on that very grouping of  terraces.

Ramon Losado is one of my favorite winemakers. He is a veterinarian by profession; winemaker by birthright. The D. Ventura brand is named after his grandfather who taught him winemaking and includes three small vineyards in Ribiera Sacra.

I reviewed his D. Ventura ’07 Pena Do Lobo Mencia last year and talked at length about the area, his family and his approach to winemaking in that post.

The Vina Caneiro Mencia is distinct, even though both vineyards are on the hillside above the River Sil. The Viña Caneiro vineyard (pictured at the top of this post) is seriously steeper and hangs on top of the river. This keeps it cooler and makes for a different microclimate than Pena Do Lobo. As well, Caneiro is Losa (pure slate) while Do Lobo is slate and granite.

Both sites are planted in 100% Mencia, grown organically and hand harvested to insure that each cluster is fully mature when harvested. Only indigenous yeast is used to start fermentation. None of the wines are filtered or cold stabilized.

The ’09 Vina Caneiro Ribeira Sacra Mencia is a bold wine with lots of zest.

Bright fruit, lively acidity and strong but silky tanins. The bouquet is layered and pervasive even through the lingering finish.

I tasted a few bottles of this over a week. I decanted it, and got more from the bottle in large goblets with a lot of air. Mencia is an intense grape. This wine with 14% alcohol has deep fruit flavors but remarkably, with graceful balance. It’s riper and more full bodied than the Pena Do Lobo, but still distinctly Burgundian in style.

This is a satisfying red wine, great with grilled food or with nibbles of cheese. I spent the week tasting raw sheep and goat’s cheese from Spain with it and it seemed a natural fit.

At $23 a bottle, this is a steal. A taste that satiates and intrigues. A complexity that is smooth yet firm. And organic and made by hand just for you.

I bought mine from Chambers Street Wines. If they are out of this one and you can’t find it online, the Pena Do Lobo is a bit simpler to source.

A huge thanks to Christopher Barnes, Spanish wine maven at Chambers Street and a good friend, who has brought these wondrous wines to lower Manhattan. It’s a labor of love for him. We are the beneficiary of his passion.

Juan Antonio Ponce is my trusted guide to the unusual…and the wonderful from Manchuela, Spain.

I first tasted his ’08 La Casilla Bobal last spring and was inspired with both the wonders of his wine and his approach to natural winemaking. I jumped at the chance to try his new offering, Manchuela Buena Pinta, a blend of Moravia Agria and Garnacha Tinta, two grapes that were completely unfamiliar to me.

Juan Ponce at 29 is a rising rock star of the Spanish wine world with his pulse on the natural rhythms of the Bobal grape. Viticulture and Manchuela are in his genes. Born into a grape growing family that has tended their high-altitude vineyards in Manchuela for generations, he returned home at the age of 23 after working with natural winemakers Olivier Riviera in Rioja and Marcel Lapierre in France to start a vineyard with his father on their generational and tiny plots of ancient Bobal vines.

The results of the Ponce family vineyard as I sip from the large goblet on my desk, are surprising, unusual and astounding.

Juan has managed to create clear, bright, layered, rich and very accessible wine from the tannic-ridden and highly acidic Bobal grape. He has been called the ‘prophet of Bobal’ but I prefer to think of him as a “Bobal and Manchuela whisperer”, working with micro-terroirs and grounded in a commitment to the core beliefs of biodynamics.

To Juan, terroir is all about individual microclimates–parcel-by-parcel, not vineyard-by-vineyard. He tends and picks and vinifies the grapes by each individual parcel, searching for the unique taste that starts with the soil and vine and the place itself. Whole clusters of grapes are hand harvested from each individual plot and are fermented separately before being combined to produce the cuvee.

While not certified biodynamic, he has a passionate dedication and a common sense understanding of the approach. When questioned about the logic behind a biodynamics, he stated simply that “If the moon is strong enough to influence the tides of the sea, why wouldn’t it affect something as equally natural as wine.” The superior qualities of his wines are a testament to the logic of his craft.

Only natural yeasts are used and partial carbonic maceration is employed in ancient foudres (open wood casks) to soothe the tannins inherent in these grapes.

I was emphatic about Ponce’s Bobal after I tasted it last year. I’m blown away by the Buena Pinta. This is something different altogether.

The ’09 Manchuela Buena Pinta bottling uncaps the unique characteristic of two obscure indigenous varietals. The bottle is 60% Garnacha Tinta (rumored to be from the last remaining parcel in his area) with 40% Moravia Agria, a local blending grape. This is the marriage of the ripe berries of the Garnacha with the herbal earthiness of the Moravia.

It’s hard to articulate the fingerprint from a non-interventionist winemaker like Ponce but the underlying freshness of this bottle and skeletal acidic structure with rippling fruit ties what he has mastered with Bobal to this Garnacha blend.

My friend and Spanish wine mentor, Christopher Barnes from Chambers Street Wines in New York talks about natural wines being alive in the glass. I agree but this wine is truly effervescent. Sparkling berry flavors, rich minerality and a bright herbaceous palate. Quite remarkable. Quite Delicious. Even more rare in a hot-climate wine with a rich grapes and high alcohol (14%) content. How you combine these elements to create something that is so light and springy and alive from a climate so hot, an altitude so high and from grapes so innately tannic and acidic?

The magic is in the bottle.

Juan Ponce is the native son of Mancheula and the ambassador for a completely new way to look at this region and its indigenous grapes. His wines speak to crisp honest purity that is permeated in a vivacious taste. He has created something that will please the world by discovering how to be uniquely itself.

Great with most all food; perfect with grilled meats and vegetables. Yet self-contained to hold its own as a complement to conversations and snacks. Or just to swirl and wonder and enjoy on its own

One of the pleasures of small producer artisanal wines is that they are each unique. One of the challenges is that the productions are low, thus sell out fast.

At $22 a bottle Ponce’s Buena Pinta is a must buy if you can find it. If you cannot, certainly drink one of his Bobals. All are reasonably priced. All I’ve tried are quite wonderful. Available from Chambers Street Wines online.

Watch this winemaker…and try these wines. If you like a luscious red with character, personality, zest and finesse, this is a winner.