2023-10-15 09:00:06
JOHANNE LICARD
Because the natural wines found there are often “fake”
Let’s enter directly into the subject by the most thorny point: what is a “real” natural wine? The more naughty among you can prepare the popcorn to enjoy the free-for-all that is sure to flourish in the online comments, because this question is generally enough to tense up all those who are interested closely or by far to wine. Those who are most sticklers for semantics have already stiffened just reading the title. Favorite argument as standard bearer: “Natural wine does not exist, because it is man who makes wine and, in nature, wine is vinegar”, and gnagnagna… A very childish way of evacuating the debate, and completely useless. Everyone knows that wine is the fruit of human labor.
The most common answer, that natural wine is wine without added sulphites, is unfortunately false. At least, no winemaker who prides himself on producing natural (or natural) wine will accept this definition. To know what we are talking about, the best thing is to refer to the charter of “ natural method wine », a label created in 2020 which has the enormous advantage of being recognized by the French administration, in particular by the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Institute of Origin and Quality and the General Directorate of competition, consumption and the repression of fraud.
According to this charter, a natural wine is “a certified organic wine, made from manual harvests, native yeasts, designed without any input (with the possible but not encouraged exception of a possible addition of sulphites, after fermentation, the result of which must be less than 30 mg /l in total and indicated around the edge of the logo where applicable) or use of sterilizing or altering techniques”.
In other words, a wine labeled “sulphur-free” but not organic – which constitutes a good portion of the bottles claiming to be natural available in supermarkets – does not meet these criteria. No more than those which are organic but have undergone “flash pasteurization”, an addition of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or tangential filtration to stabilize them. To my knowledge, there is currently only Biocoop (if we can consider this brand as a supermarket) which offers wines bearing the “nature method” label.
Because the storage conditions are not suitable for this
On the one hand, the injunctions of the wine psychorigids: to be properly preserved, a bottle must be laid down, protected from light, heat and vibrations. On the other, the reality of a supermarket shelf: the bottles are stored upright, facing the neon lights, after sometimes waiting in a truck in the sun and then in a warehouse. However, no offense to natural wine activists, the latter is more fragile than its classic counterparts. Without adding sulphite or any stabilizer (or filtration to evacuate any yeast), a sharp rise in temperature can quickly damage it.
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