TNs: two natural and one bio-dynamic wine.

[JonoB]

2009 Anjou-Pur Breton; Olivier Cousin
earth, smoke and funk, decaying leaves, very shitty! Herbs, cowshed, burnt cherries, burnt match and tang. Sour plum, deep, earthy and very offensive. Wild raspberry, soft, crisp and very very long. Lots of freshness but with more dark contemplative notes after air. Fresh herbs and grass... Some strawberry, slight hints of salinity. Somehow it feels that it needs to be drunk, but the initial offensive nature is where this gets its following. Tangy cherry and stalks with more air!   69/100 /b]  

NV Vouvray "La Dilettante", Methode Traditionelle: Domaine Breton
crisp, hair of dog, citrus, lemon, lime, quite vinious with good length, slightly creamy, simple and tasty, with good poise and balance. Nice cream and lime length. Apple, citrus and chalk. The length shows it will age... Needs time, but it will only soften. 59-62/100  

2008 Sancerre "Orange", Skeveldra; Sebastian Riffault
cidre, stewed lemon, spritz, grass and herbs, hideously offensive and different, petrol, nuts, wonderfully cloudy with pickled lemons, stewed apples, radioactive uranium, rotten gooseberry, wet chalk, minerals, Raw strawberry and even some cassis. Good length, herbs, fox pee, hay, grass, autumn meadow, almost a touch of bacon fat, rotting wood and a bit of stench reminiscent of funky reds. Unbelievably complex and increasingly complex with more and more air. Quite velvety, and with excellent length. Perhaps not as smile worthy as the Akmenine, but far more impressive, long and complex. If a chameleon could be more chameleon-like, this would be it!! 79+/100  

[RDD]

I'm curious to know the major differences between natural and bio-dynamic.
I've seen some natural wines that used no sulphur and went bad as you looked at them.

[JonoB]

Biodynamic have strict regulations, such as filling a bulls-horn with stuff and burying it until spring and harvests by the moon, etc, but it allows for liberal use of sulphur and copper sulphates as these have been used for millenia in winemaking (apparantly ). So Natural would be this but without those chemicals, although some natural wines are use the tiney-tiniest amount at bottling to keep the wines from as you say falling apart as soon as they touch air. These ones that use a miniscule amount are the ones who wish to make stable ageworthy wines but not necessarily adhere to bio-dynamism.

Natural wines will definitely be organic, but not necessarily bio-dynamic, where as bio-dynamic will be organic and not necessarily natural. They can of course be all three but this is quite a difficult thing to do.

The Olivier Cousin and Riffault (also bio) are natural. The Breton wines are bio-dynamic.

There are some natural wines that use no "added" sulphur. I.e if it is naturally there it is allowed, residue from used barrels bought in perhaps?? I'm not really sure to be honest how it can already be there unless sulphur can be found in grapes themselves. Even so, I don't think you could age a truly natural wine for more than 6-12 months from bottling, but some are simply "bad" wine and are usually in the fall apart by simply opening the bottle camp.

I don't like the name "natural" but like everything, there are good, bad and ugly!!

[DavidG]

I thought "natural" allowed sulfites, just not enough to be really effective. And subject to definition by... who exactly?

Or has there been an accepted, standardized definition of "natural?"

[JonoB]

No, there is no definition.

It does allow sulphur; how much depends on the producer but generally far less than others. Generally the only sulphur used is at bottling. There is usually enough to stabilise the wines but not for long ageing.

Having said that, there are some highly regarded wines that people don't realise are natural that use absolutely no sulphur whatsoever. Which goes to show that it really is just about quality. The best are excellent, but there is plenty that aren't:

I tried a few more last night and they were actually pretty mainstream as oppose to quirky, but still good.

[RDD]

Thanks for the explanation.
Maybe minimal sulphur usage goes back to the Ducth match where sulphur was burned inside a barrel.

[JonoB]

I don't know exactly. I've actually used that technique on a friend's barrel before barreling occurred, but I'm not sure whether it would be considered "natural" unless the residue from a used bought in barrel.

At the end of the day it is the winemaker's prerogative as there are no clear definitions. There are some exceptional wines but they can be very idiosyncratic.