Natural Wine, No Drama
Alan Nance settles down with a wine and book pairing
Natural Wine, No Drama: An Unpretentious Guide, by Honey Spencer.
Published in 2024 by Pavilion (UK), £25 hardback
Wine Pairing
Els Bassots 2023, Celler Escoda-Sanahuja
ABV: 12.5%
Conca de Barberà
100% Chenin Blanc
€23.30 from Decántalo
Towards the end of her book Natural Wine, No Drama, Honey Spencer recounts the day that The Guardian food critic Jay Rayner turned up at a London restaurant where she had recently become the Head Sommelier. Rayner had frequently expressed his disdain for natural wine, so the safe money was on him putting the restaurant to the sword in his subsequent review
The wine list that Spencer had created was organized into four sections: Tried and True, The Classics, A Touch Out of The Ordinary, and Wild Things. All the wines listed were the result of biodynamic and/or organic farming, but as she explains, the first two sections
…consisted of varieties, regions, and flavours that most everyday wine drinkers could recognize. […] A Touch Out of The Ordinary had slightly off-the-beaten-track wines, either from lesser-known regions or varieties, or slightly more left-field in taste. Wild Things had […] the naturals, made with as little intervention as possible and tasting as such – untamed, uninhibited…
You'll have to read the book to find out which wine (and from which section) Rayner ordered, but suffice to say, his review was positive, especially as regards the structuring of the wine list.
Spencer's book achieves much the same as that wine list she created, in that there’s something here for everyone: those who are curious to know more about natural wine; the doubters who, like Jay Rayner, are coming at it with their critic’s gun loaded and ready; and those like me, who have long since been seduced.
The first section of the book aims to get to grips with the admittedly slippery term itself, which Spencer acknowledges is rejected by many in the wine community in favour of others: real wine, raw wine, minimal intervention – none of which is any more enlightening to the uninitiated. What it comes down to, she suggests, is wine without the shit, and she offers a clear and concise summary of what this shit entails – a whole host of chemical treatments that are central to conventional wine-growing and winemaking.
Along the way she provides a useful glossary of key terms (additives, brettanomyces, cover crops, massale selection, minerality, oxidation, reduction, volatile acidity…) and summarises core concepts in natural wine growing and making (organic, biodynamic, regenerative agriculture, native yeasts, the judicious use of sulfites…).
The middle section of the book is dedicated to highlighting key figures in the world of natural wine, or as she puts it, names you need to know to understand how natural wine has arrived where it is today. The list encompasses wine growers and makers, sommeliers, journalists and importers, and I was pleased to discover several new names here (in wine, there's always something new to learn).
The first of the lengthier profiles concerns Doug Wregg, a name that will be familiar to many wine lovers in the UK for his association with the wine import company Les Caves de Pyrene. Spencer then introduces us to prime movers in Greece, France, Australia, Denmark, Georgia, Lebanon, Sicily, Austria, California and the UK. All the profiles end with a suggested 'wine to try' as a complement to the text.
What becomes apparent as you read through this section is how natural wine is as much about what is done (or not done) in the vineyard as it is about the approach taken in cellar. And while this obviously means farming without pesticides or herbicides, it's also about working to promote healthy soils and biodiversity. In the profile of Meli Ligas (from Ktima Ligas in the Pella region of northern Greece), we learn, for example, how the planting of grasses and other cover crops can, by creating moisture at the base of the vine, reduce the heat in the soil, thus helping to combat the extreme summer temperatures (regularly above 40 °C) that the vines have to cope with. And of course, we are talking here about local grape varieties known to be better adapted to the region.
As for cellar work, Spencer makes clear how a commitment to not filtering or fining, or using only minimal (or zero) sulfites, does not imply that the resulting wine will be hazy or spritzy or akin to cider (some of the common criticisms levelled against natural wine). It all comes down to the skill of the winemaker, and here it should be remembered that most of those making wines of this kind have honed their chops over many years. One of Spain's greatest winemakers, Raúl Pérez, summed it up perfectly in a round table event that took place earlier this month during Barcelona Wine Week: la no intervención es la gran intervención (not intervening is the greatest intervention of all).
Catalonia, which can uncontroversially be regarded as the beating heart of natural wine in Spain, also merits a profile entry in the form of Stefano Colombo, a Venetian who – in 2013, and in the company of Catalan winemaker Joan Ramón Escoda, importer Joan Valencia (of Cuvée 3000), and his own chef brother Max – established the now (in)famous Bar Brutal in Barcelona (C/Princesa 14). Note that in Spanish and Catalan, the word 'brutal' (pronounced 'bru-TAL') can mean, aside from the obvious, something that is stonkingly good.
Does the Catalan wine that Honey Spencer suggests as one to try come into that category? I'm curious to find out, as it's been several years since I've uncorked a bottle of Els Bassots, an unsulfited Chenin Blanc made by Joan Ramón Escoda and Mª Carme Sanahuja in the Conca de Barberà region.
Els Bassots 2023, Celler Escoda-Sanahuja
The grapes for this (spoiler alert) delicious wine come from a single parcel of vines planted on calcareous clay at around 450 m close to the town of Prenafeta, an hour's drive from where I'm currently sat typing and sipping. The grapes are destemmed, but get 10 days of maceration on the skins, followed by fermentation and aging for 7-8 months in a large clay amphora.
Source: Celler Escoda-Sanahuja
The result is a wine that is tarnished gold and just a touch hazy, with a nose evoking bitter almond, ginger and white flowers. On the palate, there is more of a marked citrus tone cut through by a salty minerality, although still with a floral hint and a lick of spicy ginger at the end. The skin contact gives it a bit of grip and volume in the mouth, but it remains fresh, even if it doesn't have the marked acidity that one generally finds in Loire Chenin.
What it is, however, is deeply moreish, and I have to remind myself to leave some in the bottle to accompany me as I return to the book.
Having profiled some of the names to know, Honey Spencer moves on to the question of how to enjoy natural wine. If that sounds like an overly instructional proposition, the content of this final section of the book is in fact unpretentious and immensely practical, and it is geared particularly toward the uninitiated who are keen to explore. Recommendations such as finding an independent retailer who's happy to accompany you on your journey, or trusting your own tastes rather than the supposed flavour of the month, are uncontroversial and not specific to natural wine, but where this section of the book really shines is in offering not just suggested wine and food pairings (her tips for tackling salt, fat, spice, umami and sugar give much food for thought) but nine detailed recipes from chefs with whom the author has worked over the years.
For wine and food lovers, this is an open invitation to experimentation, and I would certainly like to try the mushroom dumplings and dashi (credited to Luke Selby at Evelyn's Table in London), which Spencer suggests pairing with what is indeed a fine Spanish wine: Conasbrancas from Fedellos do Couto (although she mistakenly describes it as an "Albariño-based field blend", when in fact it is built around Godello, with small amounts of Doña Blanca and Treixadura, as per its origin in Ribeira Sacra).
In addition to this slip-up with the Conasbrancas, there are a couple of unfortunate typos that caught my eye as a Catalonia-based wine lover and jazz fan. Notably, the surname of a tour-de-force in Catalan natural wine making, Nuria Renom, is misspelled as “Remon”, while in a section listing natural wine fairs, the renowned DJ and co-organizer of the Ricci Weekender, Gilles Peterson, is rendered as "Giles Pederson".
Yet this is the only criticism I have of what is a delightful and beautifully designed book that is both a joy to hold (the paper on which it is printed is luscious) and, with its numerous photographs and illustrations, a feast for the eye. And then there is the author herself, who with her engaging voice and lightly-worn knowledge draws you in and keeps you coming back for more – which, by the way, is also what the Els Bassots I've been drinking has done, to the point that the bottle is now empty. Salut!