Eric Narioo: jihadism is the problem not sulphur!
France under one roof – part 4
'Phwoarr wines at FUOR
France Under One Roof
This was mini Real Wine event for us. We racked and stacked some seriously good kit on our two tables. Scrolling through the FUOR catalogue I couldn’t see a table in the room which wasn’t stuffed with anodyne, manufactured, sulphured, blancmange wines. More than ever I feel that real wine accurately describes our approach; we source wines that have a soul, for want of a better word, a communicable spirit of terroir, and whether you like them or not, a strong identity.'
Grapevine posted 11th March 2010 on Les Caves site
Predictably Les Caves de Pyrène was one of the busiest tables at the tasting and deservedly so, as Eric Narioo and his band import lots of interesting wines, are happy to take risks and go out on a limb. It is good to see that this approach has brought Les Caves success, which is why I'm so disappointed to see such fatuous triumphalism posted (see extract above) onto Les Caves' Grapevine blog. It is arrant and arrogant nonsense to claim that of all the 90 exhibitors present only Les Caves were showing wines with a strong indentity and that all the rest were 'anodyne, manufactured, sulphured, blancmange wines'.
Marc Kreydenweiss and Michel Chapoutier, to name but two, – anodyne, blancmange wines?! Or Domaine Fouassier with 53 hectares in Sancerre currently in conversion to biodynamics. It is good to see Les Caves promoting wines from small scale producers like Sylvain Martinez etc. but they don't carry the same responsibilities as a large domaine with 50 hectares of vines. If Sylvain stuffs up with his two hectares there will be many fewer losers than if the decision by the Fouassier family to go biodynamic turns out to be disastrous. They have a number of employees whose livelihoods are dependent on their decisions.
All wines are manufactured. Some of the best wines I have drunk are what you call 'natural' or 'real' wines. Equally some of the most disgusting have also been 'real' wines. Faulty wines that shelter under the 'real-natural' wine label – often sold at ludicrously high prices to 'sophisticates' in Paris and London. Wines that could well do with a bit more manufacture and probably a discreet dose of sulphur. Or perhaps I just like 'blancmange' wines – nothing wrong with chocolate blancmagne in my opinion.
I fear a tendency to jihadism is starting to take root at Pew Corner. Remember that Mark Angeli, not a man who could be accused of making 'anodyne' wines, decided a number of years ago that unsulphured wines were too dangerous and that he would use a small dose of sulphur at the moment of bottling. His wines are the better for it.
It would be a great shame if Les Caves became Fatwa Wines.
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Notes on wines tasted to follow...
Great, succinct post Jim. I'd like to see more of this from others. I greatly prefer wines from small producers who hand-harvest and pay attention to terroir, but I dislike the absolutist "real wine" movement's tendency to be dogmatic.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bob. Sadly by association the poor 'real wines' give organic and biodynamic a bad name.
ReplyDeleteI don't think "Les Caves de Pyrène" sell only organic or biodynamic wines.
ReplyDeleteThey are selling Domaine Henry Bourgeois but it's not biodynamic. It's written on their website "the viticulture is biodynamic" but that is wrong.
Aon. Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure which website you are referring to – Les Caves or Henri Bourgeois.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know Bourgeois is not biodynamic nor is it certified organic.
I have a great deal of respect for the set up at Henri Bourgeois and their wines. However, they do use cultured yeasts – inevitable if you are producing two million bottles of year. Although the yeasts they use have come from their vineyards.
I guess as natural/real as possible in the circumstances but difficult to proclaim that this is an entirely natural wine.
An illustration of the foolishness of the Grapevine post.
Brilliant post Jim. I think there is definitely a 'sweet-spot' in the middle ground of the natural wine spectrum, where the individual pushes their wine to its natural 'limits' but whilst maintaining its - perhaps for want of a better word - drinkability. The philosophy is admirable, but when the end result isn't identifiable as Chenin, or as coming from the Loire, or is so oxidised that it isn't even identifiable as wine, then we have a real sulphur-deficiency mess on our hands.
ReplyDeleteThere was a trace of oxidation in Angeli's 2007s (nothing dramatic though) but not the 2008s. Sylvain Martinez is still - on my much more limited tasting than yours - in the oxidised camp in my mind.
Thanks Chris. I've found Martinez 2007 Goutte d'O less oxidised than the 2008. The 2007 is on right side of the line, I'm less sure about the 2008.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, Jim. Biodynamicism is a great philosophy, and I am pleased to see it gathering pace, but (as both you and others have suggested) it isn't the be-all and end-all. I've said more than once recently (on my own blog) that biodynamic farming tends to go hand-in-hand with the fastidious approach to winemaking that [b]most[/b] practitioners adopt anyway. So most of them are likely to make good or even great wines, almost as a matter of course. But there are also going to be some who are riding on the bandwagon, even if they don't have a clue how to make decent wine.
ReplyDeleteBiodynamics is (at least for the believers) really just an "extreme" version of organics. Lutte raisonnée is a "lesser" version of organics. All should be commended, in my view - it shows that the farmers care about the land and the "naturalness" of their product.
On the subject of the opening comments on Pyrene's blog post, I think you are spot on. As a wine merchant myself, if ever I find myself in such a position of clear superiority, I'd like to think I would show some class and simply content myself with that fact.
Let the wines do the talking, and leave the criticism to the critics.
Thanks Leon. In entire agreement with your comments.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is that the "general public" is confused : "organic", "biodynamic", "natural", "without sulfur", "pure"... Forgive my poor englisf, but what really matters is the "purity" that you sense in the palate when you taste or drink a wine. A wine has to be "sensitive", for my point of view. Perhaps this is naïve, but that's the way it goes. On the other hand I like this idea of yours, Jim, of craftmanship. A wine is somehow a kind of "objet d'art" which has to be finished, accomplished and signed. In that respect a tiny dose of sulphur (a natural product by the way) does not harm. On the contrary.
ReplyDeleteMichel. Thanks. I agree there is a confusion of terms and there is a danger that poor 'real' or 'natural' wines give organic and biodynamic wines a bad name as everything tends to be lumped together.
ReplyDelete