Are women more tolerant of natural wine?

I’m not sure what’s in the air but there’s been a lot of impassioned debate about natural wine this week - both pro and anti.

Natural wine advocate Isabelle Legeron referred to it in the Guardian as ‘life in a glass’. Jay Rayner countered that they were ‘brutal’ (scroll down to the comments below the piece). Wine critic Tim Atkin referred to it on Twitter as ‘primitive wine’, his fellow writer Jamie Goode poked gentle fun at both while baker and food stylist Claire Ptak enthused about her favourite natural wine diners in the FT.

It’s possible to detect a couple of patterns here. One is - and it's tempting to  argue this on International Women's Day -  that women are more tolerant than men of natural wine. At one level that’s true. I think women are generally less inclined to be confrontational about their preferences and accepting of those who don’t share them. But the people who make natural wine - and other types of wine - are mainly male, as are many of the young sommeliers who champion them.

No, the big divide I think is between people who have a food background and those whose background is in wine. By and large the wine establishment (Jamie and a handful of others apart) is anti and I can see why. Regardless of whether you approve or not of the ’N’ word about which I blogged myself a couple of weeks ago the implication for many is that if these wines are good then there’s something wrong with the rest of the wines we drink. (Not a view I share. I think it’s perfectly possible to enjoy both pet nat and champagne for example but the establishment seems to feel you can't do both.)

Food writers, chefs and younger consumers, are more open-minded. Their reaction to an unfamiliar taste or ingredient they haven’t come across is ‘bring it on’. If they don’t like it to start with (as many of us don’t take to olives or anchovies, say) their response is to try it again to see what the fuss is about. It helps to explain why many of the new wave of restaurants and wine bars serve natural wines. The chefs are into them just as much as their wine guys (or gals).

Regardless of the merits - or demerits - of natural wines, and there are good and bad examples of each, I just don’t see why people (especially middle-aged men in the wine trade) get so angry about them. No-one forces them to drink them or to go to restaurants that serve them. Almost every restaurant - even those with a 100% natural wine list - serves some other beverage - beer, cider, cocktails - that they could drink. Or they could simply say to the sommelier "I’m not that keen on natural wine, can you suggest one I might enjoy?" They might even - and this might come as a shock to them - actually find one they liked.

Image © nicoletaionescu - Fotolia.com

L'Ami Chenin: a good place to stay in the Loire

Here’s another good place to stay if you’re a natural wine fan - L’Ami Chenin in Saumur which we - or more accurately - my diligent researcher of a husband - chose because it was just down the road from Thierry Germain of Domaine des Roches Neuves who we were visiting the following day*.

It’s an 18th century house built into the rocks up above Saumur (see note on parking below). The proprietor Xavier Amat used to be a winemaker - but now combines his role running a chambres d’hôtes with that of a natural wine merchant. As a result he has a spectacular cellar.

We shared a pet nat rosé with him and his wife, France, then an old bottle of Benoit Courault’s glorious quince-scented Gilbourg Anjou Blanc whose vintage I negligently forgot to note and Noella Morantin’s 2010 Côt à Côt (Malbec) with our fellow (British) guests who, if they were taken aback to drink such off-the-wall wines, were too polite to say so.

Dinner, which you need to reserve and which may not be available if you’re the only guests, is cooked by France and is served outside in the garden if it's fine. The night we were there (July 19th 2012) it consisted of a suitably summery baba ganoush (aubergine purée), fennel, orange and red onion salad, chicken cooked with preserved lemon and couscous, a splendid selection of local cheeses and a simple strawberry dessert - a steal at 25€ (£19.58 at the time of writing)

Our very pleasant large room was 75€ (£58.75) with breakfast included.

A word of warning - the house is reached via a somewhat hairy hairpin bend and has slightly tricky parking. So it might be wise to take it easy on the vino if you go out to eat in Saumur. Oh, and there’s no wifi and not much of a phone signal but they do have an ethernet cable for computers that have a slot for one. (Not mine unfortunately but not everyone is as obsessive as me about needing to be online).

*We arranged that visit ourselves but Xavier can set up visits to winemakers if you need him to

L’Ami Chenin is at 37 rue de Beaulieu, 49400 Saumur and is closed from November 1st to January 31st. Tel: 02 41 38 13 17

Why Noma serves natural wine

As if natural wine needed a boost right now along comes this interview on eater.com with Noma's wine director Pontus Elofsson on why Noma has turned its back on Bordeaux and is serving natural wines, mainly from Austria, Germany, Champagne, Burgundy and the Loire.

He's quoted as saying "Around 2006 I started to realize the wines with the least amount of intervention, chemicals, and techniques involved had an energy and focus that many of the conventional wines did not. I also started to realize that the wilder the wine, the better it paired with René's food."

Bordeaux, he says does not and is, in Elofsson's view, "probably the biggest chemical factory in Europe."

Whoa - stirring stuff! Read the rest of the interview here.

And download the wine list here.

Natural wine bar Artisan & Vine closes

Sad news today that one of London's best natural wine bars has closed its doors. Kathyrn O'Mara the owner of Artisan and Vine in Battersea attributes the situation to the recession. According to the wine industry magazine Harpers she said "Sticking to my principles on natural and local wines and food may have been what cost me my business, but changing to a more generic option would have cost us Artisan & Vine."

O'Mara a popular figure in the trade put a great deal into the business, attracting many of the top natural winemakers to her bar and restaurant. I went to a great dinner there with Sicilian winemaker Frank Cornelissen last year and the food (see above) was as good as the wine.

Ironically I was just thinking this week that the natural wine movement was flourishing despite criticism from leading industry figures such as Michel Chapoutier. Antidote just off Carnaby Street in the West End was packed when we ate there the other night and more and more conventional restaurants and merchants seem to be listing organic and biodynamic wines.

Maybe it was the location that did for Artisan & Vine but it can't have helped that the fashionable Soif, sister restaurant to Terroirs and Brawn opened up not that far away.

It's a real shame but I'm sure with her energy, drive and passion Kathryn will go on to do great things elsewhere.

A sneak preview of Soif, south London's latest natural wine bar

I seldom venture south of the river if I can help it but annoyingly some of the best natural wine haunts are now establishing themselves there. Artisan & Vine, Green & Blue and now Soif, the third restaurant in the Caves de Pyrène-backed group which includes Terroirs and Brawn.

Actually I say 'now' but it doesn't open until Monday but we got a sneak preview last night when it was open to host a Green and Blue tasting with Alice Feiring who was reading from her new book Naked Wine.

I've mentioned Feiring before and will come back to the book in due course but I liked the way the tasting was pitched as an 'anti-Beaujolais nouveau night'. We tasted two proper gamays, Hervé Souhaut's Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet La Souteronne 2009, an appropriately breezy, delicious vin de soif and Foillard's much more muscular, savoury 2009 Morgon which opened up beautifully as the evening wore on.


We also got a chance to sample some of the dishes on the menu which included a very good rustic paté and a to-die-for cep and caramelised onion tart, to which the blurry photo above in no way does justice. There will also be jugged hare which is pretty exciting.

It's all very much in the same register and style as Terroirs and Brawn though slightly bigger and less hidden away than the latter and, being Battersea, with probably a rather different vibe. (Ed Wilson the executive chef of the group (below) told me he wasn't quite sure how the locals would react. Apparently a couple had already helpfully offered some suggestions about the kind of dishes they thought they should be doing. Goodness knows what they'll make of the wines and even of the name. So-if, soyf or swuf?


Anyway they're spoilt for choice if they choose to be. It's a fantastic list and the food is the kind of modern bistro that Wilson does so well (though Colin Westal who was Rowley Leigh's head chef at Le Café Anglais is the one who will be heading up the kitchen on a day-to-day basis). Incidentally he (Wilson) is also going to be acting as consultant to Green & Blue who are expanding their restaurant operation in East Dulwich from next month.


Soif is at 27 Battersea Rise, London SW11 1HG. Tel: 020 7223 1112. If you're coming from central London it's a 8-10 minute walk from Clapham Junction station.

Vivant: Paris's newest natural wine bistro

Of all the natural wine haunts we planned to get to this past week Vivant was the one we thought we were most likely to miss out on having read that you needed to book 1-2 weeks in advance. Happily that proved not to be the case. We just walked in off the street on a Monday lunchtime and got a table.

There are several reasons for its popularity, the most significant of which is that it's owned by Pierre Jancou, founder of the iconic wine bar Racines and author of Vin Vivant, the most influential French natural wine handbook. It's also relatively new (it opened back in April) and tiny as is the way with the most fashionable Parisian joints these days.

It's in an unprepossessing street in the 10th but you can see why Jancou fell for the premises which are covered with the most beautiful art deco tiles (it apparently used to be a oiselerie or bird shop according to this post on the excellent Wine Terroirs)


The wines are chalked up on a board and are as good a list of natural wines as any you'll find in Paris. We had three that were standouts - two 'orange' wines - Les Barrieux 2009 from Jean-Yves Peron in Savoie, a deliciously hazy peachy blend of Roussanne and Jacquère and Montemagro, a Durello from Danielle Piccini which I've already written about here and an extraordinarily exotic, scented light red/rosé (depending which way you look at it) called Fanino Catarrato e Pignatello from Gabrio Bini of Serragghia in Pantelleria*. All the wines they stock are unfined and unfiltered with no added yeasts or sulphites.


Foodwise it is more a restaurant than a bar though you could, I suspect, go in for one of the starters - a plate of wafer-thin sweet fiocco ham or burrata which seems to be the must-have entrée on every Parisian restaurant menu at the moment - later in the day or if the restaurant is quiet. We opted to have a main course of sausage en cocotte with root vegetables and milk fed pork with polenta and aubergines, however, both generous and delicious. And a plate of 3 year old parmesan, managing to run up a bill over over €100.


There are cheaper places to drink natural wine in Paris but this must without a doubt be of the best.

Note: Vivant is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

* about whom you can again read more on Wine Terroirs here (scroll down the post).

Why you shouldn't be scared of Le Baratin

We'd heard so many bad things about Le Baratin we almost didn't get there. It was only reading an interview with Bertrand Grebaut of Septime, one of Paris's most highly rated new restaurants, in a funky food magazine called Fricote saying that is was his favourite restaurant in Paris that made us think twice. That and the fact that Le Baratin is still the main place of pilgrimage in Paris for natural wine lovers.

We'd heard bad reports though from friends who had found the owner insupportably rude so we arrived with some trepidation. We were sat next to a group of very noisy Americans of the sort that might just account for his attitude.

Fortunately my husband speaks French like a native so we were fine. When we asked to move to a quieter table there wasn't a problem. He actually got a smile out of the gaffer. And the rest of the staff couldn't have been more charming or helpful.

And the food and wine are terrific - well worth the trek up to the 20th. I had a simple crab and green bean salad and my husband a ragout of artichoke hearts and carrots which miraculously survived the bottle of Yoyo KM31, a glorious rich, heady grenache/carignan blend from the Roussillon we had ordered from the tempting list on the board. It was better though, admittedly, with our two main courses a braised veal cheek (below) and the most amazing joue de boeuf (beef cheek) I've ever eaten which managed to be fall-apart tender and crisp on the outside. I find it rare these days to find main courses better than starters but these were both brilliant.


We finished by sharing a perfectly matured Brie - ripe right the way through but not bitter as Brie can become if it's allowed to go too far.

A really super meal - not cheap* but totally delicious. French chefs love it. Brave the boss and go.

Le Baratin is at 3, rue Jouye-Rouve in the Belleville area in the north of the city. (20th arrondissement). Nearest metro: Pyrenées Tél: 01 43 49 39 70. It's closed Sunday and Monday

* They do a lunchtime menu for 16€ from Tuesday to Friday.

If you're in that part of town and can't get in to Le Baratin try Le Chapeau Melon the other side of the road (evenings only)

Auberge de Chassignolles: a natural wine hotel

Ever since I visited the natural wine bar Gergovie earlier this year and found out that owner Harry Lester (below) ran a hotel in the Auvergne called the Auberge de Chassignolles during the summer I’ve been dying to go.

And last week we made it and spent 3 indulgent nights there.

It’s just as good as I’d hoped. A tiny village set in glorious unspoilt countryside about 950m above sea level, surrounded by dense forests and rolling green pastures it’s as good a get-away-from-it-all destination as you can imagine.



Our room overlooked a 12th century Romanesque church


The auberge operates on a dinner, bed and breakfast basis, dinner being a 5 course prix fixe affair that changes every night - fantastic value for 24 euros a head.



Harry also has a serious, largely natural wine list which we made good use of - highlights being the 2008 Domaine Michel Lafarge Raisins Dorées Bourgogne Aligoté, the 2008 Elian da Ros Cotes du Marmandais, Le Vin est une Fête and Antoine Arena Carco 2009 from Patrimonio in Corsica. There are also some great classics such as Domaine Tempier Bandol, Thierry Allemand’s Cornas, Grange des Pères and a 1999 vintage of Domaine de Trévallon.


In fact it was so perfect we’re squeezing in another night on the way home next week ;-)

Note: the hotel closes for the summer at the end of September

More bio buzz from Paris and Burgundy

I went to a very posh tasting at the Dorchester last night that would not normally be the subject of this blog but for the remarkable fact of a French female sommelier, Estelle Touzet - head sommelier at the 3 starred Le Meurice, no less - serving up a New Zealand biodynamic wine (Felton Road's 2009 Bannockburn Pinot).

In fact of the four wines she showed - only one was French (Coumbe del Mas) - and from the Roussillon not one of the more prestigious wine areas.

It really shows how fast the restaurant world is changing. It's inconceivable that one of the so-called 'palaces' as Paris's most prestigious hotels are called, would have had a female head sommelier or shown wines of this type at a press event even five years ago. Touzet reckons that around 200 wines from her 1100 strong list are biodynamic, possibly more as many producers choose not to certify . . .

I also gather (from my colleague Richard Hemming via Twitter) that Anne-Claude Leflaive has launched a new biodynamic négociant business, Leflaive et Associés which will be buying in fruit from biodynamic growers. Further proof, if proof were needed, that biodynamics is becoming big business.

And what did the wine taste like? Ah, forgot to mention that. Elegant, mineral, quite smokey - I thought it might be a mourvèdre, without the lush fruit that tends to typify Central Otago pinot. But, interestingly, it was a root day. A great match though with a 'bouchée' of rare beef with celeriac rémoulade and a lot of black pepper which actually restored some of the fruit to the wine. More on my matchingfoodandwine website tomorrow.

Blacks: a London club with natural wine

I've recently revived my membership of Blacks , not on the basis that I needed a London club living out of town - useful though that is - but for the somewhat frivolous reason that they have an extensive natural wine list.

They probably did when I belonged to it a few years ago except no-one talked about natural wine in those days. The wine, chosen by Giuseppe Mascoli was always good though - usually from small (in capacity not size) Italian producers.

Mascoli is also the other half of Aubert & Mascoli who are one of the leading importers of natural wine and one of the participants in the recent Natural Wine Fair. He also created the highly successful mini pizza chain Franco Manca.

Most of the current Blacks list is now organic and a number of wines sulphur free including the very attractive and reasonably priced Terragno Dolcetto, Colli Tortonesi from Valli Unite we had at lunch today. (It could have done with being a shade cooler but when we asked if we could have an ice bucket they mysteriously brought along a bucket of cold water without ice. Maybe they regard ice as unnatural?)

They also produce a very well-designed free newsletter called The Carafe with profiles of their producers and - this appears to the food and wine matching geek in me - suggest pairings for each course on the main dining room menu.

The place is wonderfully raffish and decadent. I love it.

A glimpse of Le Chapeau Melon

We've had two trips planned to Paris in the last six months which we've had to abort - one on grounds of the heavy snow just before Christmas, the second last month for a family funeral. On both we planned to check out Paris's well developed natural wine bar scene so I have a twinge of envy when I come across posts like this from a blog called Paris Kitchen about Le Chapeau Melon which is run by Olivier Camus, one of the founders of the famous (and apparently famously rude) Le Baratin.

So that's it really. Looks great. Thought you'd like to read it . . .

A natural wine dinner at Bar Battu

A busy, busy week - not much time for drinking wine - natural or otherwise. However I did finally get to go to Bar Battu, one of London's new natural wine bars. Oddly it's in the heart of the City which makes it more like a conventional wine bar than a hip hangout like Terroirs or Brawn, despite the Parisian-looking window.

The Caves de Pyrène crowd were out in force (I wish there were more natural wine importers so that I didn't have to keep writing about them all the time. Much as I love them.)

And we drank:

* a sparkling dark pink and very delicious Malvasia Rosa 2009 from Camillo Donati

* a 2009 Cuvée Marine Côtes de Gascogne from Domaine de Menard (not mad on this. Tasted like it was made with conventional yeasts)

* a 2008 Rosso di Montalcino, Pian dell'Orino. An attractively supple Tuscan red, well matched with duck, stuffed cabbage confit and a cherry and sage jus

* and a Braeburn apple tatin with calvados crème fraîche with an Eric Bordelet, poire granit which stole the show I thought.

I was dining with my son - a restaurateur - who isn't particularly into natural wine and can't see the point of it. Which is where I was roughly eighteen months ago. It'll be interesting to see if he comes round . . .

Natural wine out of London

Given how glorious the weather's been this week I was gutted not to be able to make it to the organic and biodynamic wine and cider dinner this week at the Porthminster Beach Café. And even more so when I saw the menu which I shall torture you with below.

However the good thing is that it shows that some interesting things going on outside London which is always welcome. (There's nothing that frustrates readers more than you banging on about what's going on in the capital - or not even the capital if you live in Scotland or Wales ;-)

More impressive still there was a full-blown vegetarian version of the menu. What's striking about both options is how fresh and seasonal the food was - and I'm sure this is the style of cooking that shows off natural wines best. (I plan to come back to that subject . . . )

Anyway, the wines were provided by Ellis Wharton a Cornish wine merchant that seems to have an interest in natural wine. Read on and drool:

Sweet and Sour Rhubarb Cone
Parmesan ice-cream
Polgoon Sparkling Aval Cider


Purple Gnocchi OR Battered Cod Cheeks with Almond
Darjeeling tea gel, salted grapes and wild sorrel
Casa Coste Piane, Prosecco d Valdobbiadene Frizante sur lie NV


Cucumber and Tomato Tian
Pickled sea asparagus and lemon verbena
OR
Scallop and Cucumber Tian
Pickled sea asparagus and white crab dressing
Chateau Tour des Gendres ‘Cuvee des Conti’ Bergerac Sec 2010


Haloumi and Orange
Fennel, rose salt and hazelnuts
OR
OR Pork and Pear
Rose salt, hazelnuts and crackle
Cullen “Kevin John” Chardonnay 2007 Margaret River


Beetroot Sorbet
Sumac and feta cheese
OR
Blow Torched Mackerel
Sumac, cured ham and beetroot sorbet
Chateau Cambon, Raisins Gaulois 2009


Red Wine and Rosemary Risotto
Wild spring herbs and rosemary
OR
Spring Lamb Cannon
Wild garlic, nettles, parsnip and plum
COS, ‘Nero di Lupo’ , Nero D Avola


Rhubarb
Specialties and surprises
Chateau de Hauteville Poire Granit 2009

Also the Bristol based wine bar and restaurant Flinty Red is having a 'foraged supper' with natural wines on May 3rd with Caroline Davey of Fat Hen. And - drat it - I'm away for that too!

Brawn: a mecca for natural wine lovers

If you’re a fan of Terroirs, London’s leading natural wine bar and restaurant, you’ll no doubt have heard of its new East End offshoot Brawn which opened a couple of weeks ago in Columbia Road.

It was set up in what looks like a former industrial unit by Terroirs talented chef Ed Wilson who lives in the neighbourhood and “wanted the kind of restaurant I want to go to on my doorstep”.

In fact he’s created the sort of restaurant any and every natural wine lover would want to go to: friendly, relaxed with simply cooked brilliant ingredients and a terrific selection of natural wines.


We went there for the Guardian Christmas lunch and grazed through an ridiculous amount of food - oysters, two selections of charcuterie, one Italian, one French, several plates of seafood (langoustines, mussels, clams and squid), a cassoulet-like dish called mongetes, andouillette and chips (passed on that one), a sublime zander boudin with shellfish sauce and some wonderfully airy (they needed to be) îles flottantes. I could hardly eat for the next 24 hours.

We also drank some excellent wines (though I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my tasting notes)


* An extraordinary deep salmon-coloured 2009 Pet Nat de Raisins from Domaine de la Tournelle in the Jura made from Ploussard (aka Poulsard). I don’t always find ‘pet nat’ convicing but this was just delicious

* A 2009 Anjou Sec from Agnes and René Mosse - a typically rich natural Chenin

* La Guillaume 2009 from Jean Maupertuis - a deliciously fresh gamay from the Auvergne which we drank with the charcuterie

* Domaine Matassa Cuvée Alexandria 2008, a rich, earthy vin de pays des Cotes Catalanes from the Roussillon (brilliant with the zander boudin and shellfish sauce

* And a funky bottle of Jean-François Nicq’s 2007 Les Glaneurs, from Domaine des Foulards Rouge (decanted) which was brilliant with the mongetes


What was great was the way we shifted from red to white without the least sense of that being inappropriate.

The food and the wines will change all the time depending on availability and Ed’s whim. You should be able to keep track of both via their website which should be up shortly.

The one downside is that Brawn is not well served by public transport. It’s about a 10 minute walk from Hoxton tube and railway station, about 15 minutes from Bethnal Green tube or take a 55 bus from Old Street. It’s also had such rave reviews you may find it hard to get a booking. But you should definitely make the effort to go.

I just wished I lived round the corner.

The address is 49 Columbia Road, London, E2 7RG. (020) 7729 5692