Wine of the Month - February 2017

A growing trend in the wine world is the rise of natural wine. Pushed around by wild-eyed sommeliers and equally wild-haired wine critics, these wines are made with as little intervention as possible. In some cases, they can be good, and surprisingly long-lived. When they're bad, they smell and taste of sweaty socks. Their advocates can be seen insisting that these off flavours show purity and a sense of place. Perhaps, but people do some pretty unnatural things, such as showering with soap, so that their terroir is less noticeable to others.

I have tasted some natural wines that were deliciously clean and impressive. One of the best places to sample some is Wine RVLT, which I wrote about previously here. The wine world is constantly evolving, and now we have sparkling natural wines, pétillant-naturel or pét-nat for short. During the process of fermentation, carbon dioxide is generated as yeast consumes the natural sugar in grapes. Pét-nats are simply wines bottled before the fermentation is complete, thus the carbon dioxide is trapped inside the bottle while the yeast finishes eating the sugar. The cloudy appearance of the wine is due to the dead yeast cells.

For some reason or another, Australia is a large producer of pét-nats. The combination of hipster cafes, vegan and gluten free options seems to be fertile breeding ground for lovers of natural wine. This wine was made by Tim Wildman, a British-born Master of Wine who conducts wine tours in Australia. It is a blend of  50% Vermentino, 25% Nero d’Avola, and 25% Muscat. The source of the fruit is Riverland, a warm wine-growing region in South Australia.

Wine: Astro Bunny 2016

Tasting note: I was informed that the wine should be shaken to stir up the sediment evenly. Wouldn't this cause the wine to fizz upon opening? The sales staff said that it wouldn't, but it did. Consider yourself warned. The pressure is not as high as say, Champagne, more akin to cider. Very distinct grapefruit flavours, with peach and grape on the finish. Dry and light bodied. Not particularly complex but unusual and refreshing. Worth exploring at AUD35.  

The French Prince of Liger-Belair

Producer: Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair

Thibault Liger-Belair’s introduction to wine began in 1988, where as a teenager he would spend his weekends in Nuits-Saint-Georges helping a family friend in the vineyard. He announced his intention to become a winemaker to his father at the age of 16, but it was not until 2001 that he established Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair and started making his own wine. While blessed with holdings that had been in the family for generations, when Thibault reclaimed control of the vineyards which had previously been leased out he found it necessary to effect wide-ranging changes. “In 2001 when I took over the family vineyard the soil was grey. Grey soil is a sign of dead soil. That is why for the first vintage it was very important to give new life to the soil. Since the beginning I have decided to stop all chemical products and to go organic.” In 2004, Thibault went further and adopted a biodynamic approach to managing his vineyards. “The main thing in Burgundy is the soil, and the problem in the last 30 years, is that we have integrated into the soil what the vine needed, in terms of fertilisation. I have decided to integrate into the soil what the soil needed, [in order to] give to the vine what the vine needed, which is one step more. The vine is just a reflection of the soil.”