Real wine vs RAW wine

Those of you who attended the UK’s first natural wine fair last May might have spotted that this year there are not one but two events: RAW, aka the Artisan Wine Fair fronted by MW Isabelle Legeron and The Real Wine Fair which is being co-ordinated by the UK’s largest natural wine importer Les Caves de Pyrène.

Both parties are taking care not to slag each other off but the truth appears to be that a messy divorce has taken place due to the main protagonists inability to work together.

Legeron who styles herself That Crazy Frenchwoman maintains that hers is the real successor to the Natural Wine Fair (though both parties have agreed not to use the N word) in that it’s independent of any importers and open to producers who are not represented in the UK. She also claims that her conditions for entry are more transparent. As well as meeting a number of conditions (e.g. no fining, no filtering, only natural yeasts) exhibitors must indicate how much sulphur, if any has been added in their wines. She has also succeeded in getting the backing of two European bodies, La Renaissance des Appellations and Vin Natur.

Douglas Wregg the front man for Les Caves suggests that because consumers will be able to buy wine, their event is more consumer friendly (though Legeron counters that her fair will have a pop-up wine shop too). He also points out that because it is funded by the importers (several other leading wine retailers and distributors such as Vine Trail, Indigo Wines and Roberson are involved) it’s free to producers and that they take a less draconian line than RAW about the wines that can be submitted.

Given that event will take place over the same May weekend (20th/21st although the Real Wine Fair goes on for a third day) the situation must be pretty confusing for the natural winemakers out there. Which do they attend? Les Caves de Pyrène can presumably pull rank with their producers and members of Renaissance and VinNatur will, I imagine, throw their lot in with Legeron but if a producer falls into both camps as I guess several will, which way will they jump?


In the end I suspect it will come down to who can win the public relations war. Legeron, an energetic self-publicist, has hit the ground running with a fully fledged website and Facebook page whereas The Real Wine Fair only has a holding page to date though they are apparently due to publish more details next week. They've also taken on one of London’s most journalist-friendly PR companies, R & R teamwork.

Given the intense rivalry between the two camps it should be a pretty good couple of days for natural winelovers in London. But feathers will be ruffled, mark my words.

The Real Wine Fair is taking place at B1, 6 Victoria House, Southampton Row, London WC1B 4DA (nearest tube Holborn) and RAW at The Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane,
London E1 6QL

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.

Why I can't write about the Raeburn tasting

Given I haven't posted for over a month I didn't intend to start with a rant but having been blackballed from the Raeburn Fine Wines tasting today I think the matter deserves an airing.

The problem appears to be a somewhat critical review I wrote of Hedone six months ago - the restaurant where the tasting was taking place. Having been urged to come along (and even bring a chef friend) I suddenly got a frantic email this morning asking me "not to attend today under any circumstances" as my presence "would probably result in a disagreement in public, which he [the presumably mortally wounded chef] and we would prefer to avoid."

There are several issues here:

* I would have been there to taste wine not to review the restaurant so it doesn't really matter what I thought of the food and the ambience.

* Why should the fact I've written a critical review result in a 'public disagreement'? I certainly wouldn't have mentioned it.

* In any case why should he care? I'm not a restaurant critic and there are plenty of critics and bloggers who think his restaurant is the bees knees. (And a few who agree with me.)

* Isn't this a bit of a slippery slope? If only people who write glowing reviews - of restaurants or wines - are allowed to tastings that seems to me a pretty unhealthy state of affairs. Granted if I incessantly went to Hedone and banged on about how awful it was the chef might reasonably ask me to leave. But just the one visit when I was by no means critical of all the food and said I should probably go back and eat there again? A bit extreme, surely?

OK. Let's look at it from Mikael's point of view. Some customer comes in, writes an unfavourable review and it's up there on the internet in perpetuity. He obviously cares passionately about what he does. But if it rankles that much (and I'm still at a loss to see why) why not simply get in touch and say 'you ought to take another look at what we do'.

Should I have turned up anyway? Well there's an argument for that but at the end of the day a restaurant is someone's private property. You can't insist on being admitted and Chiswick is a fair way to go on the off-chance.

The outcome is I've missed what by all accounts sounds a fascinating tasting featuring exactly the sort of wines that interest me most. I'm sure I'll write about them in the future - assuming I'm ever allowed to taste them. In the meantime I suggest both Raeburn and Hedone devote a little more attention to PR.

How natural is Australian wine?

Australians' concept of natural wine - a term they don't actually tend to use - is very different from ours. Pretty well everyone uses some sulphur for example and even the more radical wines don't taste as alternative as they do in Europe. To many of course that's a decided plus but I missed some of the more off-the-wall flavours to which I've become accustomed over the last year or so. ('Faulty wines' in many Aussies' point of view.)

There are reasons for that. A producer can't currently get a permit to export a wine unless it passes a tasting panel and conforms to certain technical parameters which means that wines on the funkier frontier such as Jamsheed's Mon Petite Francine (sic), a vibrant and delicious Cabernet Franc get turned down. Ironically echoing the sort of things that go on in what Australia considers to be over-regulated France. And transport is a real problem. Australians have to ship their wines over the equator during the course of which temperatures can fluctuate wildly.

Biodynamics is being embraced - but in an odd way. The phrase 'we use some biodynamic treatments' is widely used but that seems rather to defeat the point of the exercise. Either you buy into the idea or you don't. There's much less use of herbicides and other sprays - everyone these days likes to say they're sustainable - and less acid adjustment though that depends on the region. Australia has extreme weather patterns. In 2009, the year of the dreadful fires in the Yarra Valley, temperatures in a 'cool climate' region soared to 45°C. Droughts are common and irrigation in many areas essential, particularly where young vines are involved.

Indigenous yeasts are increasingly popular, especially for chardonnay, lack of fining and filtration much more widespread than would once have been the case.

Even so many Australian wines would probably not qualify for inclusion in events like this summer's Natural Wine Fair but there are some brilliantly individual wines you wouldn't have tasted there five years ago. And wines that always were distinctive like Yarra Yering's no 1 red you are reminded, on re-tasting, are very traditionally made. 2004 is the current vintage!

The issue raises a lot of heat though. There are senior figures in the industry who get positively apoplectic when you discuss it - "you journalists are all obsessed by it", "so you want to drink faulty wines" .... etc, etc. But given the poverty of many of Australia's soils, biodynamics makes a lot of sense.

Anyway over the next few weeks I'll be reporting back on some of my most interesting visits and meetings with producers such as Domaine Lucci, Ngeringa, Paxton, Battle of Bosworth, Kooyong and Castagna, all of whose wines I'm happy to say are available in the UK. And a few natural wine bars - though again that's not how they tend to describe themselves. The N word is not a big sell Down Under . . .

Vanya Cullen: Margaret River's biodynamic pioneer

I last visited Cullen in the Margaret River region of Western Australia about 15 years ago, hard though that seems to believe. I loved their wines, even more their vineyards and winery. It was - and is - a very special place.

In the meantime they've gone organic and, more recently biodynamic, a step that has changed the wines less than you might imagine. I think they were probably pretty well organic then.

Many people in the natural wine fraternity I suspect would hesitate to label their wines natural. They use sulphur (as I'm sure I'd be tempted to do if I made wine in Australia and needed to export it), and oak - slightly too much so for my taste in the case of their top of the range Diana Madeline Cabernet though as a 2009 it was far too early to tell. On the other hand it was Cullen's wines that convinced me of the effect of the biodynamic calendar. I tasted their Sauvignon Semillon earlier this year on a leaf day and it was totally out of kilter. Happily yesterday (a fruit day) it was tasting fresh, crisp and delicious as was the 2009 Kevin John Chardonnay, my favourite wine of the tasting.


Vanya Cullen says that she went down the biodynamic route because their soils were so depleted. She says they'd tried everything else but biodynamic treatments were the only thing that reinvigorated the soil. "The minerality in the wines has increased as has the sense of tasting the land in the wine."

This sense of connection with the property also brought her personal solace when her mother Diana died back in 2003. "It helped to take the emptiness away" she says simply.

Although some other Margaret River producers such as Cape Mentelle and McHenry Hohnen are experimenting with biodynamic treatments none is approaching it with such rigour or conviction as Vanya. "It's such a joyful way to farm and the best way to be a custodian of the land for future generations".


Cullen's stash of cows' horns. Apparently 6 will treat the whole property. I have to say I find this the hardest aspect of biodynamics to get my head round but for an explanation of how it works in relation to wine see this YouTube video from Mark Beaman of Paul Dolan vineyards.

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.

Seresin pinots and why wines need air

You might conclude from the absence of posts, I've been keen to let my OH bask in his moment of glory* but I've just been insanely busy with the manic round of tasting that preceeds the run-up to Christmas, a time when even adventurous drinkers retreat into the time-honoured favourites that are on special offer.

That doesn't mean I've stopped drinking natural wines though and as I have a whole stack of bottles awaiting comment, let's get six out of the way first - a fascinating series of Pinot Noirs from the New Zealand producer Seresin, whose grapes are organically and biodynamically grown and which makes wine with the minimum of intervention. (Indigenous yeasts, no fining or filtering).

As a range they all tasted quite conventional. They would get a green light in my classification** and purists might even not regard them as natural as Seresin both uses both wood and (I presume from the taste and the distance they have to travel) sulphur. But since they were made in a similar way it was fascinating to see the impact of terroir.

The one that was most obviously 'natural' was the 2008 'Sun and Moon' Pinot Noir which the top of their range and at £50-60 (if you can get it) about twice as expensive as the other wines. At first we found it a little heavy and woody, rustic even, but it did burst into glorious, opulent sweetness five days later which suggests, as Seresin website indicates, that it's a wine for keeping. (The earliest drink date is 2012). I'm not sure it's twice as good as the other cuvées though, certainly not if you're not prepared to cellar it. (It comes, Seresin says, from the steep hill block of our clay rich hillside Raupo Creek vineyard in the Omaka Valley)


There was also another bottling from the same vineyard, the 2008 Raupo Creek Pinot Noir which was more immediately appealing with a floral nose and fine silky texture, though at present slightly short and hard on the finish. It very much needed food - and, like the other wines, more time. ("From our clay rich hillside Raupo Creek vineyard, with 60% originating from our steep hill block and 40% from the flats")

The 2008 Tatou Pinot Noir, by contrast, was grown on the "stony free-draining soils of the Tatou vineyard which is located at the western end of the Wairau Valley". I felt this wine was slightly out of balance at the moment with the wood too much in evidence, masking the fruit.


There were two named after Seresin's daughter and mother respectively, Leah and Rachel. Leah, "a blend of eight different parcels of fruit from Raupo Creek vineyard, the alluvial shingles of our Tatou vineyard and the Home vineyard, which is made up of a variety of Waimakariri type soils of alluvial origin", I found the least impressive of the line-up - which isn't to say it wasn't enjoyable. More like a simple fresh tasting young Burgundy like a Chorey-les-Beaune which makes its £20-odd price tag a little steep.

Rachel, which is drawn from the same vineyards but from different clones, I found more attractive, both prettier and more multi-layered, again with a way to go. Interestingly it's the wine that seems to be most widely available in the UK (at £20 from the Wine Society and around £23 elsewhere) though I'm not sure if that means the others have been already snapped up or it's the one that Seresin has the greatest quantity of or which most appeals to the buyers.

But our favourite bottle - and the one that was finished first was the 'Home' pinot 2008 which seemed to have a lot more texture or 'matière', as the French say, and quickly opened up to reveal luscious sweet - but not excessively sweet - fruit. (None of these wines had the sometimes jammy sweetness of Central Otago pinots.) "From the lower terraces of the Seresin home vineyard with Waimakiriri type soils of alluvial origin with free draining basalt pebbles."

So for those of you who are confused (I'm having difficulty following this myself) my preferences would be for drinking in the immediate future 1) Home 2) Sun & Moon 3) Raupo Creek 4) Rachel 5) Tatou and 6) Leah

This is a fine range of wines by any standard but I'm left with the feeling they could be finer still. Despite the fact that they were all 3 years old, they still needed time to evolve - unusual in 'new world' wines though I admit that's an increasingly redundant classification. All benefited from some aeration - we tasted all except the 'Home' five days on from almost full bottles and they'd generally improved.

I also can't help feeling, heretical though this might seem in New Zealand circles, that they wouldn't have evolved in a more interesting way under cork. In a Twitter exchange with the winemaker Clive Dougall (isn't it the only way to talk to winemakers these days?) he said "Air is good for those wines definitely. I nearly always love yesterdays left-over wines, although [there's] often none left. We try to allow oxygen to be part of the process instead [of putting the wines under cork] Looking forward to when we can choose permeability of cap though."

And although it was fascinating to see the differences in the respective terroirs I wonder if the wines wouldn't have been even more rewarding had there been more variation in vinification and oak treatment. But then I'm neither a winemaker or an MW so what do I know ...

*If so it hasn't worked. I'm still waiting for another post ;-)

** Green = you probably wouldn't be able to tell this from a conventional wine, Amber = a little more challenging, Red = for natural wine aficionados only